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GIFT  or 
Mrs.  William  Denman 


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V 


RECONSTRUCTION    IN   PHILOSOPHY 


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RECONSTRUCTION  IN 
PHILOSOPHY 


BY 
JOHN    DEWEY 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Columbia  University 


r^^?^, 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY   HOLT   AND   COMPANY 

1920 


Coptri9ht,  1920, 

BY 

HBNRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


•  ••••#"«•■  ,     , 

>  •••  •«        «*«'  «     C      ,    .     i      I 


W)t  <Sutnn  Se  IBofcrn    Company 

BOOK      MANUFACTURERS 
HAHWAY  NEW     JERSEY 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

Being  invited  to  lecture  at  the  Imperial  University 
of  Japan  in  Tokyo  during  February  and  March  of  the 
present  year,  I  attempted  an  interpretation  of  the  recon- 
struction of  ideas  and  ways  of  thought  now  going  on  in 
philosophy.  While  the  lectures  cannot  avoid  revealing 
the  marks  of  the  particular  standpoint  of  their  author, 
the  aim  is  to  exhibit  the  general  contrasts  between  older 
and  newer  types  of  philosophic  problems  rather  than  to 
make  a  partisan  plea  in  behalf  of  any  one  specific  solu- 
tion of  these  problems.  I  have  tried  for  the  most  part 
to  set  forth  the  forces  which  make  intellectual  recon- 
struction inevitable  and  to  prefigure  some  of  the  lines 
upon  which  it  must  proceed. 

Any  one  who  has  enjoyed  the  unique  hospitality  of 
Japan  will  be  overwhelmed  with  confusion  if  he  en- 
deavors to  make  an  acknowledgment  in  any  way  com- 
mensurate to  the  kindnesses  he  received.  Yet  I  must 
set  down  in  the  barest  of  black  and  white  my  grateful 
appreciation  of  them,  and  in  particular  record  my  inef- 
faceable impressions  of  the  courtesy  and  help  of  the 
members  of  the  department  of  philosophy  of  Tokyo 
University,  and  of  my  dear  friends  Dr.  Ono  and  Dr. 
Nitobe.  J.  D. 

September,  1919. 


<co.<^i> 


PAGE 


28 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I  Changing  Conceptions  of  Philosophy  .  ... 
Origin  of  philosophy  in  desire  and  imagination. 
Influence  of  community  traditions  and  authority. 
Simultaneous  development  of  matter-of-fact  knowl- 
edge. Incongruity  and  conflict  of  the  two  types. 
Respective  values  of  each  type.  .  .  .  Classic  philos- 
ophies (i)  compensatory,  (ii)  dialectically  formal, 
and  (iii)  concerned  with  "superior"  Reality.  Con- 
temporary thinking  accepts  primacy  of  matter-of- 
fact  knowledge  and  assigns  to  philosophy  a  social 
function  rather  than  that  of  absolute  knowledge. 

II  Some   Historical  Factors  in  Philosophical  Recon- 

struction        

Francis  Bacon  exemplifies  the  newer  spirit.  .  .  . 
He  conceived  knowledge  as  power.  As  dependent 
upon  organized  cooperative  research.  ...  As  tested 
bv  promotion  of  social  progress.  The  new  thought 
reflected  actual  social  changes,  industrial,  political, 
religious.   .    .    .   The  new  idealism. 

III  The  Scientific  Factor  in  Reconstruction  of  Phi- 

losophy   

Science  has  revolutionized  our  conception  of  Na- 
ture. Philosophy  has  to  be  transformed  because 
no  longer  depending  upon  a  science  which  accepts 
a  closed,  finite  world.  Or,  fixed  species.  Or,  su- 
periority or  rest  to  change  and  motion.  Contrast 
of  feudal  with  democratic  conceptions.  Elimination 
of  final  causes.  Mechanical  science  and  the  possi- 
bility of  control  of  nature.  Respect  for  matter. 
New  temper  of  imagination.  Influence  thus  far 
technical  rather  than  human  and  moral. 

IV    Changed  Conceptions  of  Experience  and  Reason       .       77 
Traditional   conception   of  nature   of   experience. 
Limits    of   ancient   civilization.      Effect   of   classsic 
idea  on  modern  empiricism.     Why  a  different  con- 
ception is  now  possible.     Psychological  change  em- 

V 


53 


VI 
CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 

phasizes  vital  factor  using  environment.  Effect 
upon  traditional  ideas  of  sensation  and  knowledge. 
Factor  of  organization.  Socially,  experience  is  now 
more  inventive  and  regulative.  .  .  .  Corresponding 
change  in  idea  of  Reason.  Intelligence  is  hypo- 
thetical and  inventive.  Weakness  of  historic  Ra- 
tionalism. Kantianism.  Contrast  of  German  and 
British  philosophies.  Reconstruction  of  empirical 
liberalism. 


PAGE 


V     Changed  Conceptions  of  the  Ideal  and  the  Real  . 
\        Idealization   rooted  in  aversion   to  the   disagree- 
I    able.  .   .    .  This  fact  has  affected  philosophy.  .    .   . 
\    True   reality  is   ideal,   and   hence  changeless,  com- 
plete.     Hence    contemplative    knowledge    is    higher 
than  experimental.    Contrast  with  the  modern  prac- 
tise of  knowledge.  .  .  .  Significance  of  change.  .   .   . 
The   actual   or   realistic   signifies  conditions   effect- 
ing change.  .   .  .  Ideals  become  methods  rather  than 
goals.      Illustration    from   elimination   of   distance. 
Change    in    conception    of   philosophy.    .     .     .    The 
.     significant  problems    for   philosophy.    .    .    .    Social 
l    understanding  and  conciliation.    The  practical  prob- 
j   lem  of  real  and  ideal. 


103 


VI     The  Significance  of  Logical  Reconstruction   . 

I  Present  confusion  as  to  logic.  Logic  is  regulative 
and  normative  because  empirical.  Illustration  from 
mathematics.  Origin  of  thinking  in  conflicts.  Con- 
frontation with  fact.  Response  by  anticipation  or 
prediction.  Importance  of  hypotheses.  Impartial 
inquiry.  Importance  of  deductive  function.  Or- 
ganization and  classification.  Nature  of  truth. 
Truth  is  adverbial,  not  a  thing. 


132 


VII     Reconstruction  in  Moral  Conceptions 

Common  factor  in  traditional  theories.  Every 
moral  situation  unique.  Supremacy  of  the  specific 
or  individualized  case.  Fallacy  of  general  ends. 
Worth  of  generalization  of  ends  and  rules  is  in- 
tellectual. Harmfulness  of  division  of  goods  into 
intrinsic  and  instrumental.  Into  natural  and  moral. 
Moral  worth  of  natural  science.  Importance  of 
discovery  in  morals.  Abolishing  Phariseeism.  .  .  . 
Growth  as  the  end.  Optimism  and  pessimism.  Con- 
ception of  happiness.  Criticism  of  utilitarianism. 
All  life  moral  in  so  far  as  educative. 


161 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

VIII  Reconstruction  as  Affecting  Social  Philosophy  .  187 
Defects  of  current  logic  of  social  thought.  Neg- 
lect of  specific  situations.  Defects  of  organic  con- 
cept of  society.  Evils  of  notion  of  fixed  self  or 
individual.  Doctrine  of  interests.  Moral  and  in- 
stitutional reform.  Moral  test  of  social  institu- 
tions. Social  pluralism.  Political  monism,  dogma 
of  National  State.  Primacy  of  associations.  In- 
ternational humanism.  Organization  a  subordinate 
conception.  Freedom  and  democracy.  Intellectual 
reconstruction  when  habitual  will  affect  imagination 
and  hence  poetry  and  religion. 

Index 217 


RECONSTRUCTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY 


- 


CHAPTER  I 
CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Man  differs  from  the  lower  animals  because  he  pre- 
serves his  past  experiences.  What  happened  in  the  past 
is  lived  again  in  memory.  About  what  goes  on  today 
hangs  a  cloud  of  thoughts  concerning  similar  things 
undergone  in  bygone  days.  With  the  animals,  an  ex- 
perience perishes  as  it  happens,  and  each  new  doing  or 
suffering  stands  alone.  But  man  lives  in  a  world  where 
each  occurrence  is  charged  with  echoes  and  reminiscences 
of  what  has  gone  before,  where  each  event  is  a  reminder 
of  other  things.  Hence  he  lives  not,  like  the  beasts  of 
the  field,  in  a  world  of  merely  physical  things  but  in  a 
world  of  signs  and  symbols.  A  stone  is  not  merely 
hard,  a  thing  into  which  one  bumps ;  but  it  is  a  monu- 
ment of  a  deceased  ancestor.  A  flame  is  not  merely 
something  which  warms  or  burns,  but  is  a  symbol  of  the 
enduring  life  of  the  household,  of  the  abiding  source  of 
cheer,  nourishment  and  shelter  to  which  man  returns 
from  his  casual  wanderings.  Instead  of  being  a  quick 
fork  of  fire  which  may  sting  and  hurt,  it  is  the  hearth 
at  which  one  worships  and  for  which  one  fights.  And  all 
this  which  marks  the  difference  between  bestiality  and 

1 


2     RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

humanity,  between  culture  and  merely  physical  nature, 
is  because  man  remembers,  preserving  and  recording  his 
experiences. 

The  revivals  of  memory  are,  however,  rarely  literal. 
We  naturally  remember  what  interests  us  and  because  it 
interests  us.  The  past  is  recalled  not  because  of  itself 
but  because  of  what  it  adds  to  the  present.  Thus  the 
primary  life  of  memory  is  emotional  rather  than  intel- 
lectual and  practical.  Savage  man  recalled  yesterday's 
struggle  with  an  animal  not  in  order  to  study  in  a  scien- 
tific way  the  qualities  of  the  animal  or  for  the  sake  of 
calculating  how  better  to  fight  tomorrow,  but  to  escape 
from  the  tedium  of  today  by  regaining  the  thrill  of 
yesterday.  The  memory  has  all  the  excitement  of  the 
combat  without  its  danger  and  anxiety.  To  revive  it 
and  revel  in  it  is  to  enhance  the  present  moment  with  a 
new  meaning,  a  meaning  different  from  that  which  actu- 
ally belongs  either  to  it  or  to  the  past.  Memory  is 
vicarious  experience  in  which  there  is  all  the  emotional 
values  of  actual  experience  without  its  strains,  vicissi- 
tudes and  troubles.  The  triumph  of  battle  is  even  more 
poignant  in  the  memorial  war  dance  than  at  the  moment 
of  victory ;  the  conscious  and  truly  human  experience  of 
the  chase  comes  when  it  is  talked  over  and  re-enacted 
by  the  camp  fire.  At  the  time,  attention  is  taken  up 
with  practical  details  and  with  the  strain  of  uncertainty. 
Only  later  do  the  details  compose  into  a  story  and  fuse 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY         3 

into  a  whole  of  meaning.  At  the  time  of  practical 
experience  man  exists  from  moment  to  moment,  pre- 
occupied with  the  task  of  the  moment.  As  he  re- 
surveys  all  the  moments  in  thought,  a  drama  emerges 
with  a  beginning,  a  middle  and  a  movement  toward 
the  climax  of  achievement  or  defeat. 

Since  man  revives  his  past  experience  because  of  the 
interest  added  to  what  would  otherwise  be  the  emptiness 
of  present  leisure,  the  primitive  life  of  memory  is  one 
of  fancy  and  imagination,  rather  than  of  accurate  recol- 
lection. After  all,  it  is  the  story,  the  drama,  which 
counts.  Only  those  incidents  are  selected  which  have 
a  present  emotional  value,  to  intensify  the  present  tale 
as  it  is  rehearsed  in  imagination  or  told  to  an  admiring 
listener.  What  does  not  add  to  the  thrill  of  combat  or 
contribute  to  the  goal  of  success  or  failure  is  dropped. 
Incidents  are  rearranged  till  they  fit  into  the  temper  of 
the  tale.  Thus  early  man  when  left  to  himself,  when 
not  actually  engaged  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  lived 
in  a  world  of  memories  which  was  a  world  of  suggestions. 
A  suggestion  differs  from  a  recollection  in  that  no' 
attempt  is  made  to  test  its  correctness.  Its  correctness 
is  a  matter  of  relative  indifference.  The  cloud  suggests 
a  camel  or  a  man's  face.  It  could  not  suggest  these 
things  unless  some  time  there  had  been  an  actual,  literal 
experience  of  camel  and  face.  But  the  real  likeness  is 
of  no  account.    The  main  thing  is  the  emotional  interest 


4  RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

in  tracing  the  camel  or  following  the  fortunes  of  the 
face  as  it  forms  and  dissolves. 

Students  of  the  primitive  history  of  mankind  tell  of 
the  enormous  part  played  by  animal  tales,  myths  and 
cults.  Sometimes  a  mystery  is  made  out  of  this  histori- 
cal fact,  as  if  it  indicated  that  primitive  man  was  moved 
by  a  different  psychology  from  that  which  now  animates 
humanity.  But  the  explanation  is,  I  think,  simple. 
Until  agriculture  and  the  higher  industrial  arts  were 
developed,  long  periods  of  empty  leisure  alternated  with 
comparatively  short  periods  of  energy  put  forth  to 
secure  food  or  safety  from  attack.  Because  of  our  own 
habits,  we  tend  to  think  of  people  as  busy  or  occupied, 
if  not  with  doing  at  least  with  thinking  and  planning. 
But  then  men  were  busy  only  when  engaged  in  the  hunt 
or  fishing  or  fighting  expedition.  Yet  the  mind  when 
awake  must  have  some  filling;  it  cannot  remain  literally 
vacant  because  the  body  is  idle.  And  what  thoughts 
should  crowd  into  the  human  mind  except  experiences 
with  animals,  experiences  transformed  under  the 
influence  of  dramatic  interest  to  make  more  vivid  and 
coherent  the  events  typical  of  the  chase?  As  men  in 
fancy  dramatically  re-lived  the  interesting  parts  of  their 
actual  lives,  animals  inevitably  became  themselves  dram- 
atized. 

They  were  true  dramatis  persona?  and  as  such  as- 
sumed the  traits   of  persons.     They  too  had  desires, 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY         5 

hopes  and  fears,  a  life  of  affections,  loves  and  hates, 
triumphs  and  defeats.  Moreover,  since  they  were  essen- 
tial to  the  support  of  the  community,  their  activities 
and  sufferings  made  them,  in  the  imagination  which 
dramatically  revived  the  past,  true  sharers  in  the  life 
of  the  community.  Although  they  were  hunted,  yet  they 
permitted  themselves  after  all  to  be  caught,  and  hence 
they  were  friends  and  allies.  They  devoted  themselves, 
quite  literally,  to  the  sustenance  and  well-being  of  the 
community  group  to  which  they  belonged.  Thus  were 
produced  not  merely  the  multitude  of  tales  and  legends 
dwelling  affectionately  upon  the  activities  and  features 
of  animals,  but  also  those  elaborate  rites  and  cults  which 
made  animals  ancestors,  heroes,  tribal  figure-heads  and 
divinities. 

I  hope  that  I  do  not  seem  to  you  to  have  gone  too 
far  afield  from  my  topic,  the  origin  of  philosophies. 
For  it  seems  to  me  that  the  historic  source  of  phi- 
losophies cannot  be  understood  except  as  we  dwell,  at 
even  greater  length  and  in  more  detail,  upon  such  con- 
siderations as  these.  We  need  to  recognize  that  the 
ordinary  consciousness  of  the  ordinary  man  left  to 
himself  is  a  creature  of  desires  rather  than  of  intel- 
lectual study,  inquiry  or  speculation.  Man  ceases  to 
be  primarily  actuated  by  hopes  and  fears,  loves  and 
hates,  only  when  he  is  subjected  to  a  discipline  which 
is  foreign  to  human  nature,  which  is,  from  the  stand- 


6     RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

point  of  natural  man,  artificial.     Naturally  our  books, 
our    scientific    and    philosophical    books,    are    written 
by  men  who  have  subjected  themselves  in  a  superior 
degree   to   intellectual   discipline   and   culture.      Their 
thoughts  are  habitually  reasonable.    They  have  learned 
to  check  their  fancies  by  facts,  and  to  organize  their 
ideas  logically  rather  than  emotionally  and  dramati- 
cally.   When  they  do  indulge  in  reverie  and  day-dream- 
ing— which  is  probably  more  of  the  time  than  is  con- 
ventionally acknowledged — they  are  aware  of  what  they 
are  doing.    They  label  these  excursions,  and  do  not  con- 
fuse their  results  with  objective  experiences.     We  tend 
to  judge  others  by  ourselves,  and  because  scientific  and 
philosophic  books  are  composed  by  men  in  whom  the 
reasonable,  logical  and  objective  habit  of  mind  predomi- 
nates, a  similar  rationality  has  been  attributed  by  them 
to  the  average  and  ordinary  man.  '  It  is  then  overlooked 
that    both    rationality    and    irrationality    are    largely 
irrelevant  and  episodical  in  undisciplined  human  nature ; 
that   men   are   governed   by   memory   rather   than   by 
thought,  and   that   memory  is   not  a  remembering  of 
actual  facts,  but  is  association,  suggestion,  dramatic 
fancy.     The  standard  used  to  measure  the  value  of  the 
suggestions  that  spring  up  in  the  mind  is  not  congruity 
with  fact  but  emotional  congeniality.     Do  they  stimu- 
late and  reinforce  feeling,  and  fit  into  the  dramatic  tale? 
Are  they  consonant  with  the  prevailing  mood,  and  can 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY        7 

they  be  rendered  into  the  traditional  hopes  and  fears 
of  the  community?  If  we  are  willing  to  take  the  word 
dreams  with  a  certain  liberality,  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  man,  save  in  his  occasional  times  of  actual 
work  and  struggle,  lives  in  a  world  of  dreams,  rather 
than  of  facts,  and  a  world  of  dreams  that  is  organized 
about  desires  whose  success  and  frustration  form  its 
stuff. 

To  treat  the  early  beliefs  and  traditions  of  mankind 
as  if  they  were  attempts  at  scientific  explanation  of  the 
world,  only  erroneous  and  absurd  attempts,  is  thus  to 
be  guilty  of  a  great  mistake.  The  material  out  of 
which  philosophy  finally  emerges  is  irrelevant  to  science 
and  to  explanation.  It  is  figurative,  symbolic  of  fears 
and  hopes,  made  of  imaginations  and  suggestions,  not 
significant  of  a  world  of  objective  fact  intellectually 
confronted.  It  is  poetry  and  drama,  rather  than 
science,  and  is  apart  from  scientific  truth  and  falsity, 
rationality  or  absurdity  of  fact  in  the  same  way  in 
which  poetry  is  independent  of  these  things. 

This  original  material  has,  however,  to  pass  through 
at  least  two  stages  before  it  becomes  philosophy  proper. 
One  is  the  stage  in  which  stories  and  legends  and  their 
accompanying  dramatizations  are  consolidated.  At 
first  the  emotionalized  records  of  experiences  are  largely 
casual  and  transitory.  Events  that  excite  the  emotions 
of  an  individual  are  seized  upon  and  lived  over  in  tale 


8     RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  pantomime.  But  some  experiences  are  so  frequent 
and  recurrent  that  they  concern  the  group  as  a  whole. 
They  are  socially  generalized.  The  piecemeal  adventure 
of  the  single  individual  is  built  out  till  it  becomes  repre- 
sentative and  typical  of  the  emotional  life  of  the  tribe. 
Certain  incidents  affect  the  weal  and  woe  of  the  group  in 
its  entirety  and  thereby  get  an  exceptional  emphasis  and 
elevation.  A  certain  texture  of  tradition  is  built  up; 
the  story  becomes  a  social  heritage  and  possession; 
the  pantomime  develops  into  the  stated  rite.  Tradition 
thus  formed  becomes  a  kind  of  norm  to  which  individual 
fancy  and  suggestion  conform.  An  abiding  framework 
of  imagination  is  constructed.  A  communal  way  of 
conceiving  life  grows  up  into  which  individuals  are 
inducted  by  education.  Both  unconsciously  and  by 
definite  social  requirement  individual  memories  are 
assimilated  to  group  memory  or  tradition,  and  indi- 
vidual fancies  are  accommodated  to  the  body  of  beliefs 
characteristic  of  a  community.  Poetry  becomes  fixated 
and  systematized.  The  story  becomes  a  social  norm. 
The  original  drama  which  re-enacts  an  emotionally  im- 
portant experience  is  institutionalized  into  a  cult.  Sug- 
gestions previously  free  are  hardened  into  doctrines. 

The  systematic  and  obligatory  nature  of  such  doc- 
trines is  hastened  and  confirmed  through  conquests  and 
political  consolidation.  As  the  area  of  a  government  is 
extended,  there  is  a  definite  motive  for  systematizing 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY         9 

and  unifying  beliefs  once  free  and  floating.  Aside  from 
natural  accommodation  and  assimilation  springing  from 
the  fact  of  intercourse  and  the  needs  of  common  under- 
standing, there  is  often  political  necessity  which  leads 
the  ruler  to  centralize  traditions  and  beliefs  in  order 
to  extend  and  strengthen  his  prestige  and  authority. 
Judea,  Greece,  Rome,  and  I  presume  all  other  countries 
having  a  long  history,  present  records  of  a  continual 
working  over  of  earlier  local  rites  and  doctrines  in  the 
interests  of  a  wider  social  unity  and  a  more  extensive 
political  power.  I  shall  ask  you  to  assume  with  me 
that  in  this  way  the  larger  cosmogonies  and  cosmologies 
of  the  race  as  well  as  the  larger  ethical  traditions  have 
arisen.  Whether  this  is  literally  so  or  not,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  inquire,  much  less  to  demonstrate.  It  is 
enough  for  our  purposes  that  under  social  influences 
there  took  place  a  fixing  and  organizing  of  doctrines 
and  cults  which  gave  general  traits  to  the  imagination 
and  general  rules  to  conduct,  and  that  such  a  consolida- 
tion was  a  necessary  antecedent  to  the  formation  of 
any  philosophy  as  we  understand  that  term. 

Although  a  necessary  -antecedent,  this  organization 
and  generalization  of  ideas  and  principles  of  belief  is 
not  the  sole  and  sufficient  generator  of  philosophy. 
There  is  still  lacking  the  motive  for  logical  system  and 
intellectual  proof.  This  we  may  suppose  to  be  furnished 
by  the  need  of  reconciling  the  moral  rules  and  ideals  em- 


10         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

bodied  in  the  traditional  code  with  the  matter  of  fact 
positivistic  knowledge  which  gradually  grows  up.  For 
man  can  never  be  wholly  the  creature  of  suggestion 
and  fancy.  The  requirements  of  continued  existence 
make  indispensable  some  attention  to  the  actual  facts 
of  the  world.  Although  it  is  surprising  how  little  check 
the  environment  actually  puts  upon  the  formation  of 
ideas,  since  no  notions  are  too  absurd  not  to  have  been 
accepted  by  some  people,  yet  the  environment  does 
enforce  a  certain  minimum  of  correctness  under  penalty 
of  extinction.  That  certain  things  are  foods,  that  they 
are  to  be  found  in  certain  places,  that  water  drowns, 
fire  burns,  that  sharp  points  penetrate  and  cut,  that 
heavy  things  fall  unless  supported,  that  there  is  a 
certain  regularity  in  the  changes  of  day  and  night  and 
the  alternation  of  hot  and  cold,  wet  and  dry: — such 
prosaic  facts  force  themselves  upon  even  primitive  atten- 
tion. Some  of  them  are  so  obvious  and  so  important 
that  they  have  next  to  no  fanciful  context.  Auguste 
Comte  says  somewhere  that  he  knows  of  no  savage 
people  who  had  a  God  of  weight  although  every  other 
natural  quality  or  force  may  have  been  deified.  Gradu- 
ally there  grows  up  a  body  of  homely  generalizations 
preserving  and  transmitting  the  wisdom  of  the  race 
about  the  observed  facts  and  sequences  of  nature.  This 
knowledge  is  especially  connected  with  industries,  arts 
and  crafts  where  observation  of  materials  and  processes 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY       11 

is  required  for  successful  action,  and  where  action  is 
so  continuous  and  regular  that  spasmodic  magic  will 
not  suffice.  Extravagantly  fantastic  notions  are 
eliminated  because  they  are  brought  into  juxtaposition 
with  what  actually  happens. 

The  sailor  is  more  likely  to  be  given  to  what  we  now 
term  superstitions  than  say  the  weaver,  because  his 
activity  is  more  at  the  mercy  of  sudden  change  and 
unforeseen  occurrence.  But  even  the  sailor  while  he 
may  regard  the  wind  as  the  uncontrollable  expression 
of  the  caprice  of  a  great  spirit,  will  still  have  to  become 
acquainted  with  some  purely  mechanical  principles  of 
adjustment  of  boat,  sails  and  oar  to  the  wind.  Fire 
may  be  conceived  as  a  supernatural  dragon  because  some 
time  or  other  a  swift,  bright  and  devouring  flame  called 
before  the  mind's  eye  the  quick-moving  and  dangerous 
serpent.  But  the  housewife  who  tends  the  fire  and  the 
pots  wherein  food  cooks  will  still  be  compelled  to  observe 
certain  mechanical  facts  of  draft  and  replenishment, 
and  passage  from  wood  to  ash.  Still  more  will  the 
worker  in  metals  accumulate  verifiable  details  about  the 
conditions  and  consequences  of  the  operation  of  heat. 
He  may  retain  for  special  and  ceremonial  occasions 
traditional  beliefs,  but  everyday  familiar  use  will  expel 
these  conceptions  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time,  when 
fire  will  be  to  him  of  uniform  and  prosaic  behavior, 
controllable  by  practical  relations  of  cause  and  effect. 


12         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

As  the  arts  and  crafts  develop  and  become  more  elabo- 
rate, the  body  of  positive  and  tested  knowledge  enlarges, 
and  the  sequences  observed  become  more  complex  and  of 
greater  scope.  Technologies  of  this  kind  give  that 
common-sense  knowledge  of  nature  out  of  which  science 
takes  its  origin.  They  provide  not  merely  a  collection 
of  positive  facts,  but  they  give  expertness  in  dealing 
with  materials  and  tools,  and  promote  the  development 
of  the  experimental  habit  of  mind,  as  soon  as  an  art 
can  be  taken  away  from  the  rule  of  sheer  custom. 

For  a  long  time  the  imaginative  body  of  beliefs  closely 
connected  with  the  moral  habits  of  a  community  group 
and  with  its  emotional  indulgences  and  consolations  per- 
sists side  by  side  with  the  growing  body  of  matter  of 
fact  knowledge.  Wherever  possible  they  are  interlaced. 
At  other  points,  their  inconsistencies  forbid  their  inter- 
weaving, but  the  two  things  are  kept  apart  as  if  in 
different  compartments.  Since  one  is  merely  super- 
imposed upon  the  other  their  incompatibility  is  not  felt, 
and  there  is  no  need  of  reconciliation.  In  most  cases, 
the  two  kinds  of  mental  products  are  kept  apart  because 
they  become  the  possession  of  separate  social  classes. 
The  religious  and  poetic  beliefs  having  acquired  a  defi- 
nite social  and  political  value  and  function  are  in  the 
keeping  of  a  higher  class  directly  associated  with  the 
ruling  elements  in  the  society.  The  workers  and  crafts- 
men who  possess  the  prosaic  matter  of  fact  knowledge 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY       13 

are  likely  to  occupy  a  low  social  status,  and  their  kind 
of  knowledge  is  affected  by  the  social  disesteem  enter- 
tained for  the  manual  worker  who  engages  in  activities 
useful  to  the  body.  It  doubtless  was  this  fact  in  Greece 
which  in  spite  of  the  keenness  of  observation,  the  ex- 
traordinary power  of  logical  reasoning  and  the  great 
freedom  of  speculation  attained  by  the  Athenian,  post- 
poned the  general  and  systematic  employment  of  the 
experimental  method.  Since  the  industrial  craftsman 
was  only  just  above  the  slave  in  social  rank,  his  type  of 
knowledge  and  the  method  upon  which  it  depended 
lacked  prestige  and  authority. 

Nevertheless,  the  time  came  when  matter  of  fact 
knowledge  increased  to  such  bulk  and  scope  that  it 
came  into  conflict  with  not  merely  the  detail  but  with  the 
spirit  and  temper  of  traditional  and  imaginative  beliefs. 
Without  going  into  the  vexed  question  of  how  and  why, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  this  is  just  what  happened  in 
what  we  term  the  sophistic  movement  in  Greece,  within 
which  originated  philosophy  proper  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  western  world  understands  that  term.  The 
fact  that  the  sophists  had  a  bad  name  given  them  by 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  a  name  they  have  never  been  able 
to  shake  off,  is  evidence  that  with  the  sophists  the 
strife  between  the  two  types  of  belief  was  the  emphatic 
thing,  and  that  the  conflict  had  a  disconcerting  effect 
upon  the  traditional  system  of  religious  beliefs  and  the 


14         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

moral  code  of  conduct  bound  up  with  it.  Although 
Socrates  was  doubtless  sincerely  interested  in  the  recon- 
ciliation of  the  two  sides,  yet  the  fact  that  he  ap- 
proached the  matter  from  the  side  of  matter  of 
fact  method,  giving  its  canons  and  criteria  primacy, 
was  enough  to  bring  him  to  the  condemnation  of 
death  as  a  contemner  of  the  gods  and  a  corrupter  of 
youth. 

The  fate  of  Socrates  and  the  ill-fame  of  the  sophists 
may  be  used  to  suggest  some  of  the  striking  contrasts 
between  traditional  emotionalized  belief  on  one  hand 
and  prosaic  matter  of  fact  knowledge  on  the  other: — 
the  purpose  of  the  comparison  being  to  bring  out  the 
point  that  while  all  the  advantages  of  what  we  call 
science  were  on  the  side  of  the  latter,  the  advantages  of 
social  esteem  and  authority,  and  of  intimate  contact 
with  what  gives  life  its  deeper  lying  values  were  on  the 
side  of  traditional  belief.  To  all  appearances,  the 
specific  and  verified  knowledge  of  the  environment  had 
only  a  limited  and  technical  scope.  It  had  to  do  with 
the  arts,  and  the  purpose  and  good  of  the  artisan  after 
all  did  not  extend  very  far.  They  were  subordinate  and 
almost  servile.  Who  would  put  the  art  of  the  shoe- 
maker on  the  same  plane  as  the  art  of  ruling  the  state? 
Who  would  put  even  the  higher  art  of  the  physician 
in  healing  the  body,  upon  the  level  of  the  art  of  the 
priest  in  healing   the   soul?     Thus   Plato   constantly 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY      15 

draws  the  contrast  in  his  dialogues.  The  shoemaker  is 
a  judge  of  a  good  pair  of  shoes,  but  he  is  no  judge  at 
all  of  the  more  important  question  whether  and  when 
it  is  good  to  wear  shoes ;  the  physician  is  a  good  judge 
of  health,  but  whether  it  is  a  good  thing  or  not  to  be 
well  or  better  to  die,  he  knows  not.  While  the  artisan 
is  expert  as  long  as  purely  limited  technical  questions 
arise,  he  is  helpless  when  it  comes  to  the  only  really 
important  questions,  the  moral  questions  as  to  values. 
Consequently,  his  type  of  knowledge  is  inherently  in- 
ferior and  needs  to  be  controlled  by  a  higher  kind  of 
knowledge  which  will  reveal  ultimate  ends  and  purposes, 
and  thus  put  and  keep  technical  and  mechanical  knowl- 
edge in  its  proper  place.  Moreover,  in  Plato's  pages  we 
find,  because  of  Plato's  adequate  dramatic  sense,  a  lively 
depicting  of  the  impact  in  particular  men  of  the  conflict 
between  tradition  and  the  new  claims  of  purely  intellec- 
tual knowledge.  The  conservative  is  shocked  beyond 
measure  at  the  idea  of  teaching  the  military  art  by 
abstract  rules,  by  science.  One  does  not  just  fight, 
one  fights  for  one's  country.  Abstract  science  cannot 
convey  love  and  loyalty,  nor  can  it  be  a  substitute,  even 
upon  the  more  technical  side,  for  those  ways  and  means 
of  fighting  in  which  devotion  to  the  country  has  been 
traditionally  embodied. 

The  way  to  learn  the  fighting  art  is  through  associa- 
tion with  those  who  have  themselves  learned  to  defend 


16         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  country,  by  becoming  saturated  with  its  ideals  and 
customs ;  by  becoming  in  short  a  practical  adept  in  the 
Greek  tradition  as  to  fighting.  To  attempt  to  derive 
abstract  rules  from  a  comparison  of  native  ways  of 
fighting  with  the  enemies'  ways  is  to  begin  to  go  over 
to  the  enemies'  traditions  and  gods :  it  is  to  begin  to  be 
false  to  one's  own  country. 

Such  a  point  of  view  vividly  realized  enables  us  to 
appreciate  the  antagonism  aroused  by  the  positivistic 
point  of  view  when  it  came  into  conflict  with  the  tradi- 
tional. The  latter  was  deeply  rooted  in  social  habits 
and  loyalties ;  it  was  surcharged  with  the  moral  aims 
for  which  men  lived  and  the  moral  rules  by  which  they 
lived.  Hence  it  was  as  basic  and  as  comprehensive  as 
life  itself,  and  palpitated  with  the  warm  glowing  colors 
of  the  community  life  in  which  men  realized  their  own 
being.  In  contrast,  the  positivistic  knowledge  was  con- 
cerned with  merely  physical  utilities,  and  lacked  the 
ardent  associations  of  belief  hallowed  by  sacrifices  of 
ancestors  and  worship  of  contemporaries.  Because  of 
its  limited  and  concrete  character  it  was  dry,  hard, 
cold. 

Yet  the  more  acute  and  active  minds,  like  that  of 
Plato  himself,  could  no  longer  be  content  to  accept, 
along  with  the  conservative  citizen  of  the  time,  the 
old  beliefs  in  the  old  way.  The  growth  of  positive 
knowledge  and  of  the  critical,  inquiring  spirit  under- 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY      17 

mined  these  in  their  old  form.  The  advantages  in 
definiteness,  in  accuracy,  in  verifiability  were  all  on  the 
side  of  the  new  knowledge.  Tradition  was  noble  in 
aim  and  scope,  but  uncertain  in  foundation.  The  un- 
questioned life,  said  Socrates,  was  not  one  fit  to  be  lived 
by  man,  who  is  a  questioning  being  because  he  is  a 
rational  being.  Hence  he  must  search  out  the  reason 
of  things,  and  not  accept  them  from  custom  and  political 
authority.  What  was  to  be  done?  Develop  a  method  of 
rational  investigation  and  proof  which  should  place  the 
essential  elements  of  traditional  belief  upon  an  unshak- 
able basis ;  develop  a  method  of  thought  and  knowledge 
which  while  purifying  tradition  should  preserve  its 
moral  and  social  values  unimpaired;  nay,  by  purify- 
ing them,  add  to  their  power  and  authority.  To  put 
it  in  a  word,  that  which  had  rested  upon  custom  was 
to  be  restored,  resting  no  longer  upon  the  habits  of 
the  past,  but  upon  the  very  metaphysics  of  Being  and 
the  Universe.  Metaphysics  is  a  substitute  for  custom 
as  the  source  and  guarantor  of  higher  moral  and 
social  values — that  is  the  leading  theme  of  the  classic 
philosophy  of  Europe,  as  evolved  by  Plato  and 
Aristotle — a  philosophy,  let  us  always  recall,  renewed 
and  restated  by  the  Christian  philosophy  of  Medieval 
Europe. 

Out  of  this  situation  emerged,  if  I  mistake  not,  the 
entire  tradition  regarding  the   function   and  office   of 


18         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

philosophy  which  till  very  recently  has  controlled  the 
systematic  and  constructive  philosophies  of  the  western 
world.  If  I  am  right  in  my  main  thesis  that  the  origin 
of  philosophy  lay  in  an  attempt  to  reconcile  the  two 
different  types  of  mental  product,  then  the  key  is  in 
our  hands  as  to  the  main  traits  of  subsequent  philosophy 
so  far  as  that  was  not  of  a  negative  and  heterodox 
kind.  In  the  first  place,  philosophy  did  not  develop  in 
an  unbiased  way  from  an  open  and  unprejudiced  origin. 
It  had  its  task  cut  out  for  it  from  the  start.  It  had  a 
mission  to  perform,  and  it  was  sworn  in  advance  to  that 
mission.  It  had  to  extract  the  essential  moral  kernel 
out  of  the  threatened  traditional  beliefs  of  the  past.  So 
far  so  good;  the  work  was  critical  and  in  the  interests 
of  the  only  true  conservatism — that  which  will  conserve 
and  not  waste  the  values  wrought  out  by  humanity. 
But  it  was  also  precommitted  to  extracting  this  moral 
essence  in  a  spirit  congenial  to  the  spirit  of  past  be- 
liefs. The  association  with  imagination  and  with  social 
authority  was  too  intimate  to  be  deeply  disturbed.  It 
was  not  possible  to  conceive  of  the  content  of  social 
institutions  in  any  form  radically  different  from  that  in 
which  they  had  existed  in  the  past.  It  became  the 
work  of  philosophy  to  justify  on  rational  grounds  the 
spirit,  though  not  the  form,  of  accepted  beliefs  and 
traditional  customs. 

The  resulting  philosophy  seemed  radical  enough  and 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY      19 

even  dangerous  to  the  average  Athenian  because  of  the 
difference  of  form  and  method.     In  the  sense  of  pruning 
away  excrescences  and  eliminating  factors  which  to  the 
average  citizen  were  all  one  with  the  basic  beliefs,  it 
was  radical.    But  looked  at  in  the  perspective  of  history 
and  in  contrast  with  different  types  of  thought  which 
developed  later  in  different  social  environments,  it  is 
now  easy  to  see  how  profoundly,  after  all,  Plato  and 
Aristotle  reflected  the  meaning  of  Greek  tradition  and 
habit,  so  that  their  writings  remain,  with  the  writings 
of  the  great  dramatists,  the  best  introduction  of  a  stu- 
dent into  the  innermost  ideals  and  aspirations  of  dis- 
tinctively Greek  life.     Without  Greek  religion,  Greek 
art,  Greek  civic  life,  their  philosophy  would  have  been 
impossible;  while  the  effect  of  that  science  upon  which 
the  philosophers  most  prided  themselves  turns  out  to 
have  been  superficial  and  negligible.     This  apologetic 
spirit  of  philosophy  is  even  more  apparent  when  Medie- 
val Christianity  about  the  twelfth  century  sought  for  a 
systematic   rational   presentation   of   itself   and   made 
use  of  classic  philosophy,  especially  that  of  Aristotle,  to 
justify  itself  to  reason.     A  not  unsimilar  occurrence 
characterizes  the  chief  philosophic  systems  of  Germany 
in  the  early  nineteenth  century,  when  Hegel  assumed  the 
task  of  justifying  in  the  name  of  rational  idealism  the 
doctrines  and  institutions  which  were  menaced  by  the 
new  spirit  of  science  and  popular  government.     The 


20         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

result  has  been  that  the  great  systems  have  not  been 
free  from  party  spirit  exercised  in  behalf  of  pre- 
conceived beliefs.  Since  they  have  at  the  same  time 
professed  complete  intellectual  independence  and  ration- 
ality, the  result  has  been  too  often  to  impart  to  philoso- 
phy an  element  of  insincerity,  all  the  more  insidious  be- 
cause wholly  unconscious  on  the  part  of  those  who 
sustained  philosophy. 

And  this  brings  us  to  a  second  trait  of  philosophy 
springing  from  its  origin.  Since  it  aimed  at  a  rational 
justification  of  things  that  had  been  previously  accepted 
because  of  their  emotional  congeniality  and  social  pres- 
tige, it  had  to  make  much  of  the  apparatus  of  reason 
and  proof.  Because  of  the  lack  of  intrinsic  rationality 
in  the  matters  with  which  it  dealt,  it  leaned  over  back- 
ward, so  to  speak,  in  parade  of  logical  form.  In  dealing 
with  matters  of  fact,  simpler  and  rougher  ways  of 
demonstration  may  be  resorted  to.  It  is  enough,  so  to 
say,  to  produce  the  fact  in  question  and  point  to  it — 
the  fundamental  form  of  all  demonstration.  But  when 
it  comes  to  convincing  men  of  the  truth  of  doctrines 
which  are  no  longer  to  be  accepted  upon  the  say-so  of 
custom  and  social  authority,  but  which  also  are  not 
capable  of  empirical  verification,  there  is  no  recourse 
save  to  magnify  the  signs  of  rigorous  thought  and  rigid 
demonstration.  Thus  arises  that  appearance  of  ab- 
stract   definition    and    ultra-scientific     argumentation 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY      21 

which  repels  so  many  from  philosophy  but  which  has 
been  one  of  its  chief  attractions  to  its  devotees. 

At  the  worst,  this  has  reduced  philosophy  to  a  show 
of  elaborate  terminology,  a  hair-splitting  logic,  and  a 
fictitious  devotion  to  the  mere  external  forms  of  com- 
prehensive  and   minute   demonstration.      Even   at   the 
best,  it  has  tended  to  produce  an  overdeveloped  attach- 
ment to  system  for  its  own  sake,  and  an  over-pretentious 
claim  to  certainty.    Bishop  Butler  declared  that  proba- 
bility is  the  guide  of  life ;  but  few  philosophers  have  been 
courageous    enough   to    avow   that   philosophy   can   be 
satisfied  with  anything  that  is  merely  probable.     The 
customs  dictated  by  tradition  and  desire  had  claimed 
finality  and  immutability.     They  had  claimed  to  give 
certain  and  unvarying  laws  of  conduct.     Very  early  in 
its   history   philosophy   made  pretension   to   a   similar 
conclusiveness,  and  something  of  this  temper  has  clung 
to  classic  philosophies  ever  since.     They  have  insisted 
that  they  were  more  scientific  than  the  sciences — that, 
indeed,  philosophy  was  necessary  because  after  all  the 
special   sciences    fail   in    attaining  final   and   complete 
truth.    There  have  been  a  few  dissenters  who  have  ven- 
tured to  assert,  as  did  William  James,  that  ".philosophy 
is  vision  "  and  that  its  chief  function  is  to  free  men's 
minds   from  bias   and  prejudice  and  to  enlarge  their 
perceptions  of  the  world  about  them.     But  in  the  main 
philosophy  has  set  up  much  more  ambitious  pretensions. 


22         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

To  say  frankly  that  philosophy  can  proffer  nothing  but 
hypotheses,  and  that  these  hypotheses  are  of  value 
only  as  they  render  men's  minds  more  sensitive  to  life 
about  them,  would  seem  like  a  negation  of  philosophy 
itself. 

In  ihe  third  place,  the  body  of  beliefs  dictated  by 
desire  and  imagination  and  developed  under  the  in- 
fluence of  communal  authority  into  an  authoritative 
tradition,  was  pervasive  and  comprehensive.  It  was,  so 
to  speak,  omnipresent  in  all  the  details  of  the  group 
life.  Its  pressure  was  unremitting  and  its  influence 
universal.  It  was  then  probably  inevitable  that  the 
rival  principle,  reflective  thought,  should  aim  at  a  simi- 
lar universality  and  comprehensiveness.  It  would  be 
as  inclusive  and  far-reaching  metaphysically  as  tradi- 
tion had  been  socially.  Now  there  was  just  one  way 
in  which  this  pretension  could  be  accomplished  in  con- 
junction with  a  claim  of  complete  logical  system  and 
certainty. 

All  philosophies  of  the  classic  type  have  made  a 
fixed  and  fundamental  distinction  between  two  realms 
of  existence.  One  of  these  corresponds  to  the  re- 
ligious and  supernatural  world  of  popular  tradition, 
which  in  its  metaphysical  rendering  became  the  world 
of  highest  and  ultimate  reality.  Since  the  final  source 
and  sanction  of  all  important  truths  and  rules  of  con- 
duct in  community  life  had  been  found  in  superior  and 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY      23 

unquestioned  religious  beliefs,  so  the  absolute  and 
supreme  reality  of  philosophy  afforded  the  only  sure 
guaranty  of  truth  about  empirical  matters,  and  the  sole 
rational  guide  to  proper  social  institutions  and  indi- 
vidual behavior.  Over  against  this  absolute  and  noume- 
nal  reality  which  could  be  apprehended  only  by  the 
systematic  discipline  of  philosophy  itself  stood  the  ordi- 
nary empirical,  relatively  real,  phenomenal  world  of 
everyday  experience.  It  was  with  this  world  that  the 
practical  affairs  and  utilities  of  men  were  connected. 
It  was  to  this  imperfect  and  perishing  world  that  mat- 
ter of  fact,  positivistic  science  referred. 

This  is  the  trait  which,  in  my  opinion,  has  affected 
most  deeply  the  classic  notion  about  the  nature  of 
philosophy.  Philosophy  has  arrogated  to  itself  the 
office  of  demonstrating  the  existence  of  a  transcendent, 
absolute  or  inner  reality  and  of  revealing  to  man  the 
nature  and  features  of  this  ultimate  and  higher  reality. 
It  has  therefore  claimed  that  it  was  in  possession  of  a 
higher  organ  of  knowledge  than  is  employed  by  posi- 
tive science  and  ordinary  practical  experience,  and 
that  it  is  marked  by  a  superior  dignity  and 
importance — a  claim  which  is  undeniable  if  philoso- 
phy leads  man  to  proof  and  intuition  of  a  Reality  be- 
yond that  open  to  day-by-day  life  and  the  special 
sciences. 

This   claim  has,  of  course,  been  denied  by  various 


24         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

philosophers  from  time  to  time.  But  for  the  most  part 
these  denials  have  been  agnostic  and  sceptical.  They 
have  contented  themselves  with  asserting  that  absolute 
and  ultimate  reality  is  beyond  human  ken.  But  they 
have  not  ventured  to  deny  that  such  Reality  would  be 
the  appropriate  sphere  for  the  exercise  of  philosophic 
knowledge  provided  only  it  were  within  the  reach  of 
human  intelligence.  Only  comparatively  recently  has 
another  conception  of  the  proper  office  of  philosophy 
arisen.  This  course  of  lectures  will  be  devoted  to 
setting  forth  this  different  conception  of  philosophy  in 
some  of  its  main  contrasts  to  what  this  lecture  has 
termed  the  classic  conception.  At  this  point,  it  can  be 
referred  to  only  by  anticipation  and  in  cursory  fashion. 
It  is  implied  in  the  account  which  has  been  given  of  the 
origin  of  philosophy  out  of  the  background  of  an 
authoritative  tradition;  a  tradition  originally  dictated 
by  man's  imagination  working  under  the  influence  of 
love  and  hate  and  in  the  interest  of  emotional  excite- 
ment and  satisfaction.  Common  frankness  requires  that 
it  be  stated  that  this  account  of  the  origin  of  philoso- 
phies claiming  to  deal  with  absolute  Being  in  a  sys- 
tematic way  has  been  given  with  malice  prepense.  It 
seems  to  me  that  this  genetic  method  of  approach  is  a 
more  effective  way  of  undermining  this  type  of  philo- 
sophic theorizing  than  any  attempt  at  logical  refutation 
could  be. 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY      25 

If  this  lecture  succeeds  in  leaving  in  your  minds  as  a 
reasonable  hypothesis  the  idea  that  philosophy  origi- 
nated not  out  of  intellectual  material,  but  out  of  social! 
and  emotional  material,  it  will  also  succeed  in  leaving \ 
with  you  a  changed  attitude  toward  traditional  philoso- 
phies. They  will  be  viewed  from  a  new  angle  and  placed 
in  a  new  light.  New  questions  about  them  will  be 
aroused  and  new  standards  for  judging  them  will  be 
suggested. 

If  any  one  will  commence  without  mental  reservations 
to  study  the  history  of  philosophy  not  as  an  isolated 
thing  but  as  a  chapter  in  the  development  of  civiliza- 
tion and  culture ;  if  one  will  connect  the  story  of  philoso- 
phy with  a  study  of  anthropology,  primitive  life,  the 
history  of  religion,  literature  and  social  institutions,  it 
is  confidently  asserted  that  he  will  reach  his  own  inde- 
pendent judgment  as  to  the  worth  of  the  account  which 
has  been  presented  today.  Considered  in  this  way,  the 
history  of  philosophy  will  take  on  a  new  significance. 
What  is  lost  from  the  standpoint  of  would-be  science  is 
regained  from  the  standpoint  of  humanity.  t  Instead 
of  the  disputes  of  rivals  about  the  nature  of  reality,  we 
have  the  scene  of  human  clash  of  social  purpose  and 
aspirations.  Instead  of  impossible  attempts  to  tran- 
scend experience,  we  have  the  significant  record  of  the 
efforts  of  men  to  formulate  the  things  of  experience  to 
which  they  are  most  deeply  and  passionately  attached. 


26         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Instead  of  impersonal  and  purely  speculative  endeavors 
to  contemplate  as  remote  beholders  the  nature  of  abso- 
lute things-in-themselves,  we  have  a  living  picture  of  the 
choice  of  thoughtful  men  about  what  they  would  have 
life  to  be,  and  to  what  ends  they  would  have  men  shape 
their  intelligent  activities. 

Any  one  of  you  who  arrives  at  such  a  view  of  past 
philosophy  will  of  necessity  be  led  to  entertain  a  quite 
definite  conception  of  the  scope  and  aim  of  future 
philosophizing.  He  will  inevitably  be  committed  to  the 
notion  that  what  philosophy  has  been  unconsciously, 
without  knowing  or  intending  it,  and,  so  to  speak,  under 
cover,  it  must  henceforth  be  openly  and  deliberately. 
When  it  is  acknowledged  that  under  disguise  of  dealing 
with  ultimate  reality,  philosophy  has  been  occupied  with 
the  precious  values  embedded  in  social  traditions,  that 
it  has  sprung  from  a  clash  of  social  ends  and  from  a 
conflict  of  inherited  institutions  with  incompatible  con- 
temporary tendencies,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  task  of 
future  philosophy  is  to  clarify  men's  ideas  as  to  the 
social  and  moral  strifes  of  their  own  day.  Its  aim  is  to 
become  so  far  as  is  humanly  possible  an  organ  for  deal- 
ing with  these  conflicts.  That  which  may  be  preten- 
tiously unreal  when  it  is  formulated  in  metaphysical 
distinctions  becomes  intensely  significant  when  connected 
with  the  drama  of  the  struggle  of  social  beliefs  and 
ideals.      Philosophy    which    surrenders    its    somewhat 


CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY      27 

barren  monopoly  of  dealings  with  Ultimate  and  Abso- 
lute Reality  will  find  a  compensation  in  enlightening 
the  moral  forces  which  move  mankind  and  in  contribut- 
ing to  the  aspirations  of  men  to  attain  to  a  more  ordered 
and  intelligent  happiness. 


CHAPTER  II 

SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  IN  PHILOSOPHI- 
CAL RECONSTRUCTION 

Francis  Bacon  of  the  Elizabethan  age  is  the  great 
forerunner  of  the  spirit  of  modern  life.  Though  slight 
in  accomplishment,  as  a  prophet  of  new  tendencies  he 
is  an  outstanding  figure  of  the  world's  intellectual  life. 
Like  many  another  prophet  he  suffers  from  confused 
intermingling  of  old  and  new.  What  is  most  signifi- 
cant in  him  has  been  rendered  more  or  less  familiar  by 
the  later  course  of  events.  But  page  after  page  is  filled 
with  matter  which  belongs  to  the  past  from  which 
Bacon  thought  he  had  escaped.  Caught  between  these 
two  sources  of  easy  disparagement,  Bacon  hardly  re- 
ceives his  due  as  the  real  founder  of  modern  thought, 
while  he  is  praised  for  merits  which  scarcely  belong 
to  him,  such  as  an  alleged  authorship  of  the  specific 
methods  of  induction  pursued  by  science.  What  makes 
Bacon  memorable  is  that  breezes  blowing  from  a  new 
world  caught  and  filled  his  sails  and  stirred  him  to  ad- 
venture in  new  seas.  He  never  himself  discovered  the 
land  of  promise,  but  he  proclaimed  the  new  goal  and 
by  faith  he  descried  its  features  from  afar. 

28 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  29 

The  main  traits  of  his  thought  put  before  our  mind 
the  larger  features  of  a  new  spirit  which  was  at  work  in 
causing  intellectual  reconstruction.  They  may  suggest 
the  social  and  historical  forces  out  of  which  the  new 
spirit  was  born.  The  best  known  aphorism  of  Bacon 
is  that  Knowledge  is  Power.  Judged  by  this  pragmatic 
criterion,  he  condemned  the  great  body  of  learning  then 
extant  as  ?io£-knowledge,  as  pseudo-  and  pretentious- 
knowledge.  For  it  did  not  give  power.  It  was  otiose, 
not  operative.  In  his  most  extensive  discussion  he 
classified  the  learning  of  his  day  under  three  heads, 
delicate,  fantastic  and  contentious.  Under  delicate 
learning,  he  included  the  literary  learning  which  through 
the  influence  of  the  revival  of  ancient  languages  and 
literatures  occupied  so  important  a  place  in  the  intellec- 
tual life  of  the  Renaissance.  Bacon's  condemnation  is 
the  more  effective  because  he  himself  was  a  master  of 
the  classics  and  of  all  the  graces  and  refinements  which 
this  literary  study  was  intended  to  convey.  In  sub- 
stance he  anticipated  most  of  the  attacks  which  educa- 
tional reformers  since  his  time  have  made  upon  one- 
sided literary  culture.  It  contributed  not  to  power  but 
to  ornament  and  decoration.  It  was  ostentatious  and 
luxurious.  By  fantastic  learning  he  meant  the  quasi- 
magical  science  that  was  so  rife  all  over  Europe  in  the 
sixteenth  century — wild  developments  of  alchemy, 
astrology,  etc.    Upon  this  he  poured  his  greatest  vials 


30         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  wrath  because  the  corruption  of  the  good  is  the 
worst  of  evils.  Delicate  learning  was  idle  and  vain,  but 
fantastic  learning  aped  the  form  of  true  knowledge. 
It  laid  hold  of  the  true  principle  and  aim  of  knowledge — 
control  of  natural  forces.  But  it  neglected  the  condi- 
tions and  methods  by  which  alone  such  knowledge  could 
be  obtained,  and  thus  deliberately  led  men  astray. 

For  our  purposes,  however,  what  he  says  about  con- 
tentious learning  is  the  most  important.  For  by  this,  he 
means  the  traditional  science  which  had  come  down,  in 
scanty  and  distorted  measure  to  be  sure,  from  antiquity 
through  scholasticism.  It  is  called  contentious  both 
because  of  the  logical  method  used  and  the  end  to  which 
it  was  put.  In  a  certain  sense  it  aimed  at  power,  but 
power  over  other  men  in  the  interest  of  some  class  or 
sect  or  person,  not  power  over  natural  forces  in  the 
common  interest  of  all.  Bacon's  conviction  of  the  quar- 
relsome, self-displaying  character  of  the  scholarship 
which  had  come  down  from  antiquity  was  of  course  not 
so  much  due  to  Greek  science  itself  as  to  the  degenerate 
heritage  of  scholasticism  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
when  philosophy  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  disputa- 
tious theologians,  full  of  hair-splitting  argumentative- 
ness and  quirks  and  tricks  by  which  to  win  victory  over 
somebody  else. 

But    Bacon    also    brought    his    charge    against    the 
Aristotelian  method  itself.      In  its   rigorous   forms  it 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  31 

aimed  at  demonstration,  and  in  its  milder  forms  at 
persuasion.  But  both  demonstration  and  persuasion 
aim  at  conquest  of  mind  rather  than  of  nature.  More- 
over they  both  assume  that  some  one  is  already  in  pos- 
session of  a  truth  or  a  belief,  and  that  the  only  problem 
is  to  convince  some  one  else,  or  to  teach.  In  contrast, 
his  new  method  had  an  exceedingly  slight  opinion  of  the 
amount  of  truth  already  existent,  and  a  lively  sense  of 
the  extent  and  importance  of  truths  still  to  be  attained. 
It  would  be  a  logic  of  discovery,  not  a  logic  of  argu- 
mentation, proof  and  persuasion.  To  Bacon,  the  old 
logic  even  at  its  best  was  a  logic  for  teaching  the  already 
known,  and  teaching  meant  indoctrination,  discipling. 
It  was  an  axiom  of  Aristotle  that  only  that  which  was 
already  known  could  be  learned,  that  growth  in  knowl- 
edge consisted  simply  in  bringing  together  a  universal 
truth  of  reason  and  a  particular  truth  of  sense  which 
had  previously  been  noted  separately.  In  any  case, 
learning  meant  growth  of  knowledge,  and  growth  be- 
longs in  the  region  of  becoming,  change,  and  hence  is 
inferior  to  possession  of  knowledge  in  the  syllogistic 
self-revolving  manipulation  of  what  was  already  known 
— demonstration. 

In  contrast  with  this  point  of  view,  Bacon  eloquently 
proclaimed  the  superiority  of  discovery  of  new  facts 
and  truths  to  demonstration  of  the  old.  Now  there  is 
only  one  road  to  discovery,  and  that  is  penetrating  in- 


32         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

quiry  into  the  secrets  of  nature.  Scientific  principles 
and  laws  do  not  lie  on  the  surface  of  nature.  They  are 
hidden,  and  must  be  wrested  from  nature  by  an  active 
and  elaborate  technique  of  inquiry.  Neither  logical 
reasoning  nor  the  passive  accumulation  of  any  number 
of  observations — which  the  ancients  called  experience — 
suffices  to  lay  hold  of  them.  Active  experimentation 
must  force  the  apparent  facts  of  nature  into  forms 
different  to  those  in  which  they  familiarly  present  them- 
selves; and  thus  make  them  tell  the  truth  about  them- 
selves, as  torture  may  compel  an  unwilling  witness  to  re- 
veal what  he  has  been  concealing.  Pure  reasoning  as  a 
means  of  arriving  at  truth  is  like  the  spider  who  spins 
a  web  out  of  himself.  The  web  is  orderly  and  elaborate, 
but  it  is  only  a  trap.  The  passive  accumulation  of 
experiences — the  traditional  empirical  method — is  like 
the  ant  who  busily  runs  about  and  collects  and  piles  up 
heaps  of  raw  materials.  True  method,  that  which  Bacon 
would  usher  in,  is  comparable  to  the  operations  of  the 
bee  who,  like  the  ant,  collects  material  from  the  external 
world,  but  unlike  that  industrious  creature  attacks  and 
modifies  the  collected  stuff  in  order  to  make  it  yield  its 
hidden  treasure. 

Along  with  this  contrast  between  subjugation  of  na- 
ture and  subjection  of  other  minds  and  the  elevation 
of  a  method  of  discovery  above  a  method  of  demonstra- 
tion, went  Bacon's  sense  of  progress  as  the  aim  and 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  33 

test  of  genuine  knowledge.  According  to  his  criticisms, 
the  classic  logic,  even  in  its  Aristotelian  form,  inevitably 
played  into  the  hands  of  inert  conservatism.  For  in 
accustoming  the  mind  to  think  of  truth  as  already 
known,  it  habituated  men  to  fall  back  on  the  intellectual 
attainments  of  the  past,  and  to  accept  them  without 
critical  scrutiny.  Not  merely  the  medieval  but  the 
renaissance  mind  tended  to  look  back  to  antiquity  as  a 
Golden  Age  of  Knowledge,  the  former  relying  upon 
sacred  scriptures,  the  latter  upon  secular  literatures. 
And  while  this  attitude  could  not  fairly  be  charged  up 
against  the  classic  logic,  yet  Bacon  felt,  and  with 
justice,  that  any  logic  which  identified  the  technique 
of  knowing  with  demonstration  of  truths  already  pos- 
sessed by  the  mind,  blunts  the  spirit  of  investigation  and 
confines  the  mind  within  the  circle  of  traditional  learn- 
ing. 

Such  a  logic  could  not  avoid  having  for  its  salient 
features  definition  of  what  is  already  known  (or  thought 
to  be  known),  and  its  systematization  according  to 
recognized  canons  of  orthodoxy.  A  logic  of  discovery 
on  the  other  hand  looks  to  the  future.  Received  truth 
it  regards  critically  as  something  to  be  tested  by  new 
experiences  rather  than  as  something  to  be  dogmatically 
taught  and  obediently  received.  Its  chief  interest  in 
even  the  most  carefully  tested  ready-made  knowledge 
is  the  use  which  may  be  made  of  it  in  further  inquiries 


34         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  discoveries.  Old  truth  has  its  chief  value  in  assist- 
ing the  detection  of  new  truth.  Bacon's  own  apprecia- 
tion of  the  nature  of  induction  was  highly  defective. 
But  his  acute  sense  that  science  means  invasion  of  the 
unknown,  rather  than  repetition  in  logical  form  of  the 
already  known,  makes  him  nevertheless  the  father  of 
induction.  Endless  and  persistent  uncovering  of  facts 
and  principles  not  known — such  is  the  true  spirit  of 
induction.  Continued  progress  in  knowledge  is  the  only 
sure  way  of  protecting  old  knowledge  from  degeneration 
into  dogmatic  doctrines  received  on  authority,  or  from 
imperceptible  decay  into  superstition  and  old  wives' 
tales. 

Ever-renewed  progress  is  to  Bacon  the  test  as  well 
as  the  aim  of  genuine  logic.  Where,  Bacon  constantly 
demands,  where  are  the  works,  the  fruits,  of  the  older 
logic?  What  has  it  done  to  ameliorate  the  evils  of  life, 
to  rectify  defects,  to  improve  conditions?  Where  are 
the  inventions  that  justify  its  claim  to  be  in  possession 
of  truth?  Beyond  the  victory  of  man  over  man  in 
law  courts,  diplomacy  and  political  administration, 
they  are  nil.  One  had  to  turn  from  admired  "  sciences  " 
to  despised  arts  to  find  works,  fruits,  consequences  of 
value  to  human  kind  through  power  over  natural  forces. 
And  progress  in  the  arts  was  as  yet  intermittent,  fitful, 
accidental.  A  true  logic  or  technique  of  inquiry  would 
make  advance  in  the  industrial,  agricultural  and  medi- 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  85 

cal  arts  continuous,   cumulative   and   deliberately   sys- 
tematic. 

If  we  take  into  account  the  supposed  bod}'  of  ready- 
made    knowledge    upon    which    learned    men    rested    in 
supine  acquiescence  and  which  they  recited  in  parrot- 
like  chorus,   we   find  it   consists    of   two   parts.      One 
of  these  parts  is  made  up  of  the  errors  of  our  ances- 
tors, musty  with  antiquity  and  organized  into  pseudo- 
science   through   the   use   of  the    classic   logic.      Such 
"  truths  "  are  in  fact  only  the  systematized  mistakes 
and  prejudices  of  our  ancestors.     Many  of  them  origi- 
nated in  accident ;  many  in  class  interest  and  bias,  per- 
petuated by  authority  for  this  very  reason — a  consid- 
eration which  later  actuated  Locke's  attack  upon  the 
doctrine  of  innate  ideas.    The  other  portion  of  accepted 
beliefs  comes  from  instinctive  tendencies  of  the  human 
mind  that  give  it  a  dangerous  bias  until  counteracted 
by  a  conscious  and  critical  logic. 

The  mind  of  man  spontaneously  assumes  greater  sim- 
plicity, uniformity  and  unity  among  phenomena  than 
actually  exists.  It  follows  superficial  analogies  and 
jumps  to  conclusions ;  it  overlooks  the  variety  of  de- 
tails and  the  existence  of  exceptions.  Thus  it  weaves  a 
web  of  purely  internal  origin  which  it  imposes  upon 
nature.  What  had  been  termed  science  in  the  past  con- 
sisted of  this  humanly  constructed  and  imposed  web. 
Men  looked  at  the  work  of  their  own  minds  and  thought 


36         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

they  were  seeing  realities  in  nature.  They  were  wor- 
shipping, under  the  name  of  science,  the  idols  of  their 
own  making.  So-called  science  and  philosophy  con- 
sisted of  these  "  anticipations  "  of  nature.  And  the 
worst  thing  that  could  be  said  about  traditional  logic 
was  that  instead  of  saving  man  from  this  natural  source 
of  error,  it  had,  though  attributing  to  nature  a  false 
rationality  of  unity,  simplicity  and  generality,  sanc- 
tioned these  sources  of  delusion.  The  office  of  the  new 
logic  would  be  to  protect  the  mind  against  itself:  to 
teach  it  to  undergo  a  patient  and  prolonged  appren- 
ticeship to  fact  in  its  infinite  variety  and  particularity : 
to  obey  nature  intellectually  in  order  to  command  it 
practically.  Such  was  the  significance  of  the  new  logic 
— the  new  tool  or  organon  of  learning,  so  named  in 
express  opposition  to  the  organon  of  Aristotle. 

Certain  other  important  oppositions  are  implied. 
Aristotle  thought  of  reason  as  capable  of  solitary  com- 
munion with  rational  truth.  The  counterpart  of  his 
celebrated  saying  that  man  is  a  political  animal,  is  that 
Intelligence,  Nous,  is  neither  animal,  human  nor  politi- 
cal. It  is  divinely  unique  and  self-enclosed.  To  Bacon, 
error  had  been  produced  and  perpetuated  by  social  in- 
fluences, and  truth  must  be  discovered  by  social  agencies 
organized  for  that  purpose.  Left  to  himself,  the  indi- 
vidual can  do  little  or  nothing;  he  is  likely  to  become 
involved  in  his  own  self-spun  web  of  misconceptions. 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  37 

The  great  need  is  the  organization  of  co-operative  re- 
search, whereby  men  attack  nature  collectively  and  the 
work  of  inquiry  is  carried  on  continuously  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  Bacon  even  aspired  to  the  rather 
absurd  notion  of  a  method  so  perfected  that  differences 
in  natural  human  ability  might  be  discounted,  and  all 
be  put  on  the  same  level  in  production  of  new  facts 
and  new  truths.  Yet  this  absurdity  was  only  the  nega- 
tive side  of  his  great  positive  prophecy  of  a  combined 
and  co-operative  pursuit  of  science  such  as  characterizes 
our  own  day.  In  view  of  the  picture  he  draws  in  his 
New  Atlantis  of  a  State  organized  for  collective  inquiry, 
we  readily  forgive  him  his  exaggerations. 

Power  over  nature  was  not  to  be  individual  but  col- 
lective; the  Empire,  as  he  says,  of  Man  over  Nature, 
substituted  for  the  Empire  of  Man  over  Man.  Let  us 
employ  Bacon's  own  words  with  their  variety  of  pic- 
turesque metaphor :  "  Men  have  entered  into  the  desire 
of  learning  and  knowledge,  .  .  .  seldom  sincerely  to 
give  a  true  account  of  their  gift  of  reason,  to  the  benefit 
and  use  of  men,  but  as  if  they  sought  in  knowledge  a 
couch  whereon  to  rest  a  searching  and  wandering  spirit ; 
or  a  terrace  for  a  wandering  and  variable  mind  to  walk 
up  and  down  with  a  fair  prospect;  or  a  tower  for  a 
proud  mind  to  raise  itself  upon;  or  a  fort  or  command- 
ing ground  for  strife  and  contention;  or  a  shop  for 
profit  and  sale ;  and  not  a  rich  storehouse  for  the  glory 


38         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  creator  and  the  relief  of  man's  estate."  When 
William  James  called  Pragmatism  a  New  Name  for  an 
Old  Way  of  Thinking,  I  do  not  know  that  he  was  think- 
ing expressly  of  Francis  Bacon,  but  so  far  as  concerns 
the  spirit  and  atmosphere  of  the  pursuit  of  knowledge, 
Bacon  may  be  taken  as  the  prophet  of  a  pragmatic 
conception  of  knowledge.  Many  misconceptions  of  its 
spirit  would  be  avoided  if  his  emphasis  upon  the  social 
factor  in  both  the  pursuit  and  the  end  of  knowledge  were 
carefully  obsejrved. 

This  somewhat  over-long  resume  of  Bacon's  ideas  has 
not  been  gone  into  as  a  matter  of  historic  retrospect. 
The  summary  is  rather  meant  to  put  before  our  minds 
an  authentic  document  of  the  new  philosophy  which  may 
bring  into  relief  the  social  causes  of  intellectual  revolu- 
tion. Only  a  sketchy  account  can  be  here  attempted, 
but  it  may  be  of  some  assistance  even  barely  to  remind 
you  of  the  direction  of  that  industrial,  political  and 
religious  change  upon  which  Europe  was  entering. 

Upon  the  industrial  side,  it  is  impossible,  I  think, 
to  exaggerate  the  influence  of  travel,  exploration  and 
new  commerce  which  fostered  a  romantic  sense  of  ad- 
venture into  novelty;  loosened  the  hold  of  traditional 
beliefs ;  created  a  lively  sense  of  new  worlds  to  be  investi- 
gated and  subdued ;  produced  new  methods  of  manufac- 
ture, commerce,  banking  and  finance;  and  then  reacted 
everywhere    to    stimulate    invention,    and    to    intro- 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  39 

duce  positive  observation  and  active  experimentation 
into  science.  The  Crusades,  the  revival  of  the  profane 
learning  of  antiquity  and  even  more  perhaps,  the  con- 
tact with  the  advanced  learning  of  the  Mohammedans, 
the  increase  of  commerce  with  Asia  and  Africa,  the 
introduction  of  the  lens,  compass  and  gunpowder,  the 
finding  and  opening  up  of  North  and  South  America — 
most  significantly  called  The  New  World — these  are 
some  of  the  obvious  external  facts.  Contrast  between 
peoples  and  races  previously  isolated  is  always,  I  think, 
most  fruitful  and  influential  for  change  when  psycho- 
logical and  industrial  changes  coincide  with  and  rein- 
force each  other.  Sometimes  people  undergo  emotional 
change,  what  might  almost  be  called  a  metaphysical 
change,  through  intercourse.  The  inner  set  of  the  mind, 
especially  in  religious  matters,  is  altered.  At  other 
times,  there  is  a  lively  exchange  of  goods,  an  adoption 
of  foreign  tools  and  devices,  an  imitation  of  alien  habits 
of  clothing,  habitation  and  production  of  commodities. 
One  of  these  changes  is,  so  to  speak,  too  internal  and  the 
other  too  external  to  bring  about  a  profound  intellectual 
development.  But  when  the  creation  of  a  new  mental 
attitude  falls  together  with  extensive  material  and 
economic  changes,  something  significant  happens. 

This  coincidence  of  two  kinds  of  change  was,  I  take  it, 
characteristic  of  the  new  contacts  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries.    Clash  of  customs  and  traditional 


40         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

beliefs  dispelled  mental  inertia  and  sluggishness ;  it 
aroused  a  lively  curiosity  as  to  different  and  new  ideas. 
The  actual  adventure  of  travel  and  exploration  purged 
the  mind  of  fear  of  the  strange  and  unknown:  as  new 
territories  geographically  and  commercially  speaking 
were  opened  up,  the  mind  was  opened  up.  New  contacts 
promoted  the  desire  for  still  more  contacts ;  the  appetite 
for  novelty  and  discovery  grew  by  what  it  fed  upon. 
Conservative  adherence  to  old  beliefs  and  methods 
underwent  a  steady  attrition  with  every  new  voyage 
into  new  parts  and  every  new  report  of  foreign  ways. 
The  mind  became  used  to  exploration  and  discovery.  It 
found  a  delight  and  interest  in  the  revelations  of  the 
novel  and  the  unusual  which  it  no  longer  took  in  what 
was  old  and  customary.  Moreover,  the  very  act  of 
exploration,  of  expedition,  the  process  of  enterprising 
adventure  into  the  remote,  yielded  a  peculiar  joy  and 
thrill. 

This  psychological  change  was  essential  to  the  birth 
of  the  new  point  of  view  in  science  and  philosophy. 
Yet  alone  it  could  hardly  have  produced  the  new  method 
of  knowing.  But  positive  changes  in  the  habits  and 
purposes  of  life  gave  objective  conformation  and  sup- 
port to  the  mental  change.  They  also  determined  the 
channels  in  which  the  new  spirit  found  exercise.  New- 
found wealth,  the  gold  from  the  Americas  and  new  arti- 
cles of  consumption  and  enjoyment,  tended  to  wean  men 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  41 

from  preoccupation  with  the  metaphysical  and  theologi- 
cal, and  to  turn  their  minds  with  newly  awakened  in- 
terest to  the  joys  of  nature  and  this  life.  New  material 
resources  and  new  markets  in  America  and  India  under- 
mined the  old  dependence  upon  household  and  manual 
production  for  a  local  and  limited  market,  and  generated 
quantitative,  large  scale  production  by  means  of  steam 
for  foreign  and  expanding  markets.  Capitalism,  rapid 
transit,  and  production  for  exchange  against  money  and 
for  profit,  instead  of  against  goods  and  for  consump- 
tion, followed. 

This  cursory  and  superficial  reminder  of  vast  and 
complicated  events  may  suggest  the  mutual  interde- 
pendence of  the  scientific  revolution  and  the  industrial 
revolution.  Upon  the  one  hand,  modern  industry  is  so 
much  applied  science.  No  amount  of  desire  to  make 
money,  or  to  enjoy  new  commodities,  no  amount  of  mere 
practical  energy  and  enterprise,  would  have  effected  the 
economic  transformation  of  the  last  few  centuries  and 
generations.  Improvements  in  mathematical,  physical, 
chemical  and  biological  science  were  prerequisites. 
Business  men  through  engineers  of  different  sorts,  have 
laid  hold  of  the  new  insights  gained  by  scientific  men 
into  the  hidden  energies  of  nature,  and  have  turned 
them  to  account.  The  modern  mine,  factory,  railway, 
steamship,  telegraph,  all  of  the  appliances  and  equip- 
ment of  production,  and  transportation,  express  scienti- 


42         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

fie  knowledge.  They  would  continue  unimpaired  even 
if  the  ordinary  pecuniary  accompaniments  of  economic 
activity  were  radically  altered.  In  short,  through  the 
intermediary  of  invention,  Bacon's  watchword  that 
knowledge  is  power  and  his  dream  of  continuous  empire 
over  natural  forces  by  means  of  natural  science  have 
been  actualized.  The  industrial  revolution  by  steam 
and  electricity  is  the  reply  to  Bacon's  prophecy. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  true  that  the  needs 
of  modern  industry  have  been  tremendous  stimuli  to 
scientific  investigation.  The  demands  of  progressive 
production  and  transportation  have  set  new  problems 
to  inquiry;  the  processes  used  in  industry  have  sug- 
gested new  experimental  appliances  and  operations  in 
science;  the  wealth  rolled  up  in  business  has  to  some  ex- 
tent been  diverted  to  endowment  of  research.  The  un- 
interrupted and  pervasive  interaction  of  scientific  dis- 
covery and  industrial  application  has  fructified  both 
science  and  industry,  and  has  brought  home  to  the  con- 
temporary mind  the  fact  that  the  gist  of  scientific 
knowledge  is  control  of  natural  energies.  These  four 
facts,  natural  science,  experimentation,  control  and 
progress  have  been  inextricably  bound  up  together. 
That  up  to  the  present  the  application  of  the  newer 
methods  and  results  has  influenced  the  means  of  life 
rather  than  its  ends ;  or,  better  put,  that  human  aims 
have  so  far  been  affected  in  an  accidental  rather   than 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  43 

in  an  intelligently  directed  way,  signifies  that  so  far  the 
change  has  been  technical  rather  than  human  and  moral, 
that  it  has  been  economic  rather  than  adequately  social. 
Put  in  the  language  of  Bacon,  this  means  that  while 
we  have  been  reasonably  successful  in  obtaining  com- 
mand of  nature  by  means  of  science,  our  science  is  not 
yet  such  that  this  command  is  systematically  and  pre- 
eminently applied  to  the  relief  of  human  estate.  Such 
applications  occur  and  in  great  numbers,  but  they  are 
incidental,  sporadic  and  external.  And  this  limita- 
tion defines  the  specific  problem  of  philosophical  re- 
construction at  the  present  time.  For  it  emphasizes 
the  larger  social  deficiencies  that  require  intelligent 
diagnosis,  and  projection  of  aims  and  methods. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  you  however  that 
marked  political  changes  have  already  followed  upon  the 
new  science  and  its  industrial  applications,  and  that  in 
so  far  some  directions  of  social  development  have  at 
least  been  marked  out.  The  growth  of  the  new  technique 
of  industry  has  everywhere  been  followed  by  the  fall  of 
feudal  institutions,  in  which  the  social  pattern  was 
formed  in  agricultural  occupations  and  military  pur- 
suits. Wherever  business  in  the  modern  sense  has  gone, 
the  tendency  has  been  to  transfer  power  from  land  to 
financial  capital,  from  the  country  to  the  city,  from  the 
farm  to  factory,  from  social  titles  based  on  personal 
allegiance,   service  and  protection,  to  those  based   on 


44         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

control  of  labor  and  exchange  of  goods.  The  change 
in  the  political  centre  of  gravity  has  resulted  in  emanci- 
pating the  individual  from  bonds  of  class  and  custom 
and  in  producing  a  political  organization  which  depends 
less  upon  superior  authority  and  more  upon  voluntary 
choice.  Modern  states,  in  other  words,  are  regarded 
less  as  divine,  and  more  as  human  works  than  they 
used  to  be;  less  as  necessary  manifestations  of  some 
supreme  and  over-ruling  principles,  and  more  as  con- 
trivances of  men  and  women  to  realize  their  own  desires. 
The  contract  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  state  is  a 
theory  whose  falsity  may  easily  be  demonstrated  both 
philosophically  and  historically.  Nevertheless  this 
theory  has  had  great  currency  and  influence.  In  form, 
it  stated  that  some  time  in  the  past  men  voluntarily  got 
together  and  made  a  compact  with  one  another  to 
observe  certain  laws  and  to  submit  to  certain  authority 
and  in  that  way  brought  the  state  and  the  relation  of 
ruler  and  subject  into  existence.  Like  many  things  in 
philosophy,  the  theory,  though  worthless  as  a  record 
of  fact,  is  of  great  worth  as  a  symptom  of  the  direction 
of  human  desire.  It  testified  to  a  growing  belief  that 
the  state  existed  to  satisfy  human  needs  and  could  be 
shaped  by  human  intention  and  volition.  Aristotle's 
theory  that  the  state  exists  by  nature  failed  to  satisfy 
the  thought  of  the  seventeenth  century  because  it 
seemed  by  making  the  state  a  product  of  nature  to  re- 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  45 

move  its  constitution  beyond  human  choice.  Equally 
significant  was  the  assumption  of  the  contract  theory 
that  individuals  by  their  personal  decisions  expressing 
their  personal  wishes  bring  the  state  into  existence.  The 
rapidity  with  which  the  theory  gained  a  hold  all  over 
western  Europe  showed  the  extent  to  which  the  bonds 
of  customary  institutions  had  relaxed  their  grip.  It 
proved  that  men  had  been  so  liberated  from  absorption 
in  larger  groups  that  they  were  conscious  of  themselves 
as  individuals  having  rights  and  claims  on  their  own 
account,  not  simply  as  members  of  a  class,  guild  or 
social  grade. 

Side  by  side  with  this  political  individualism  went  a 
religious  and  moral  individualism.  The  metaphysical 
doctrine  of  the  superiority  of  the  species  to  the  indi- 
vidual, of  the  permanent  universal  to  the  changing  par- 
ticular, was  the  philosophic  support  of  political  and 
ecclesiastical  institutionalism.  The  universal  church 
was  the  ground,  end  and  limit  of  the  individual's  beliefs 
and  acts  in  spiritual  matters,  just  as  the  feudal  hier- 
archical organization  was  the  basis,  law  and  fixed  limit 
of  his  behavior  in  secular  affairs.  The  northern  bar- 
barians had  never  completely  come  under  the  sway  of 
classic  ideas  and  customs.  That  which  was  indigenous 
where  life  was  primarily  derived  from  Latin  sources 
was  borrowed  and  more  or  less  externally  imposed  in 
Germanic  Europe.     Protestantism  marked  the  formal 


46         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

breaking  away  from  the  domination  of  Roman  ideas. 
It  effected  liberation  of  individual  conscience  and  wor- 
ship from  control  by  an  organized  institution  claiming 
to  be  permanent  and  universal.  It  cannot  truly  be  said 
that  at  the  outset  the  new  religious  movement  went  far 
in  promoting  freedom  of  thought  and  criticism,  or  in 
denying  the  notion  of  some  supreme  authority  to  which 
individual  intelligence  was  absolutely  in  bonds.  Nor  at 
first  did  it  go  far  in  furthering  tolerance  or  respect  for 
divergency  of  moral  and  religious  convictions.  But 
practically  it  did  tend  to  disintegration  of  established 
institutions.  By  multiplying  sects  and  churches  it  en- 
couraged at  least  a  negative  toleration  of  the  right  of 
individuals  to  judge  ultimate  matters  for  themselves.  In 
time,  there  developed  a  formulated  belief  in  the  sacred- 
ness  of  individual  conscience  and  in  the  right  to  freedom 
of  opinion,  belief  and  worship. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  how  the  spread  of  this 
conviction  increased  political  individualism,  or  how  it 
accelerated  the  willingness  of  men  to  question  received 
ideas  in  science  and  philosophy — to  think  and  observe 
and  experiment  for  themselves.  Religious  individualism 
served  to  supply  a  much  needed  sanction  to  initiative  and 
independence  of  thought  in  all  spheres,  even  when  re- 
ligious movements  officially  were  opposed  to  such  free- 
dom when  carried  beyond  a  limited  point.  The  greatest 
influence  of  Protestantism  was,  however,  in  developing 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  47 

the  idea  of  the  personality  of  every  human  being  as  an 
end  in  himself.  When  human  beings  were  regarded  as 
capable  of  direct  relationship  with  God,  without  the 
intermediary  of  any  organization  like  the  Church,  and 
the  drama  of  sin,  redemption  and  salvation  was  some- 
thing enacted  within  the  innermost  soul  of  individuals 
rather  than  in  the  species  of  which  the  individual  was  a 
subordinate  part,  a  fatal  blow  was  struck  at  all  doc- 
trines which  taught  the  subordination  of  personality — 
a  blow  which  had  many  political  reverberations  in 
promoting  democracy.  For  when  in  religion  the  idea  of 
the  intrinsic  worth  of  every  soul  as  such  was  proclaimed, 
it  was  difficult  to  keep  the  idea  from  spilling  over,  so  to 
say,  into  secular  relationships. 

The  absurdity  is  obvious  of  trying  in  a  few  para- 
graphs to  summarize  movements  in  industry,  politics  and 
religion  whose  influence  is  still  far  from  exhausted  and 
about  which  hundreds  and  thousands  of  volumes  have 
been  written.  But  I  shall  count  upon  your  forbearance 
to  recall  that  these  matters  are  alluded  to  only  in  order 
to  suggest  some  of  the  forces  that  operated  to  mark  out 
the  channels  in  which  new  ideas  ran.  First,  there  is  the 
transfer  of  interest  from  the  eternal  and  universal  to 
what  is  changing  and  specific,  concrete — a  movement 
that  showed  itself  practically  in  carrying  over  of  atten- 
tion and  thought  from  another  world  to  this,  from  the 
supernaturalism    characteristic    of    the    Middle    Ages 


48         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

to  delight  in  natural  science,  natural  activity  and 
natural  intercourse.  Secondly,  there  is  the  gradual 
decay  of  the  authority  of  fixed  institutions  and  class 
distinctions  and  relations,  and  a  growing  belief  in  the 
power  of  individual  minds,  guided  by  methods  of  obser- 
vation, experiment  and  reflection,  to  attain  the  truths 
needed  for  the  guidance  of  life.  The  operations  and 
results  of  natural  inquiry  gained  in  prestige  and  power 
at  the  expense  of  principles  dictated  from  high 
authority. 

Consequently  principles  and  alleged  truths  are 
judged  more  and  more  by  criteria  of  their  origin 
in  experience  and  their  consequences  of  weal  and  woe 
in  experience,  and  less  by  criteria  of  sublime  origin 
from  beyond  everyday  experience  and  independent  of 
fruits  in  experience.  It  is  no  longer  enough  for  a  princi- 
ple to  be  elevated,  noble,  universal  and  hallowed  by  time. 
It  must  present  its  birth  certificate,  it  must  show  under 
just  what  conditions  of  human  experience  it  was  gen- 
erated, and  it  must  justify  itself  by  its  works,  present 
and  potential.  Such  is  the  inner  meaning  of  the  modern 
appeal  to  experience  as  an  ultimate  criterion  of  value 
and  validity.  In  the  third  place,  great  store  is  set 
upon  the  idea  of  progress.  The  future  rather  than  the 
past  dominates  the  imagination.  The  Golden  Age  lies 
ahead  of  us  not  behind  us.  Everywhere  new  possibilities 
beckon   and   arouse   courage   and   effort.      The  great 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  49 

French  thinkers  of  the  later  eighteenth  century  bor- 
rowed this  idea  from  Bacon  and  developed  it  into  the 
doctrine  of  the  indefinite  perfectibility  of  mankind  on 
earth.  Man  is  capable,  if  he  will  but  exercise  the  re- 
quired courage,  intelligence  and  effort,  of  shaping  his 
own  fate.  Physical  conditions  offer  no  insurmountable 
barriers.  In  the  fourth  place,  the  patient  and  experi- 
mental study  of  nature,  bearing  fruit  in  inventions 
which  control  nature  and  subdue  her  forces  to  social 
uses,  is  the  method  by  which  progress  is  made.  Knowl- 
edge is  power  and  knowledge  is  achieved  by  sending  the 
mind  to  school  to  nature  to  learn  her  processes  of 
change. 

In  this  lecture  as  in  the  previous  one,  I  can  hardly 
close  better  than  by  reference  to  the  new  responsibilities 
imposed  upon  philosophy  and  the  new  opportunities 
opened  to  it.  Upon  the  whole,  the  greatest  effect  of 
these  changes  up  to  date  has  been  to  substitute  an 
Idealism  based  on  epistemology,  or  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, for  the  Idealism  based  on  the  metaphysics  of 
classic  antiquity. 

Earlier  modern  philosophy  (even  though  uncon- 
sciously to  itself)  had  the  problem  of  reconciling  the 
traditional  theory  of  the  rational  and  ideal  basis,  stuff 
and  end  of  the  universe  with  the  new  interest  in  indi- 
vidual mind  and  the  new  confidence  in  its  capacities.  It 
was  in  a  dilemma.    On  the  one  hand,  it  had  no  intention 


50    RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  losing  itself  in  a  materialism  which  subordinated  man 
to  physical  existence  and  mind  to  matter — especially 
just  at  the  moment  when  in  actual  affairs  man  and  mind 
were  beginning  to  achieve  genuine  rule  over  nature. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  conception  that  the  world  as 
it  stood  was  an  embodiment  of  a  fixed  and  comprehensive 
Mind  or  Reason  was  uncongenial  to  those  whose  main 
concern  was  with  the  deficiencies  of  the  world  and  with 
an  attempt  to  remedy  them.  The  effect  of  the  objective 
theological  idealism  that  had  developed  out  of  classic 
metaphysical  idealism  was  to  make  the  mind  submissive 
and  acquiescent.  The  new  individualism  chafed  under 
the  restrictions  imposed  upon  it  by  the  notion  of  a  uni- 
versal reason  which  had  once  and  for  all  shaped  nature 
and  destiny. 

In  breaking  away  from  antique  and  medieval  thought, 
accordingly,  early  modern  thought  continued  the  older 
tradition  of  a  Reason  that  creates  and  constitutes  the 
world,  but  combined  it  with  the  notion  that  this  Reason 
operates  through  the  human  mind,  individual  or  collec- 
tive. This  is  the  common  note  of  idealism  sounded  by 
all  the  philosophies  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  whether  belonging  to  the  British  school  of 
Locke,  Berkeley  and  Hume  or  the  Continental  school  of 
Descartes.  In  Kant  as  everybody  knows  the  two 
strains  came  together;  and  the  theme  of  the  formation 
of  the  knowable  world  by  means   of  a  thought   that 


SOME  HISTORICAL  FACTORS  51 

operated  exclusively  through  the  human  knower  became 
explicit.  Idealism  ceased  to  be  metaphysical  and  cosmic 
in  order  to  become  epistemological  and  personal. 

It  is  evident  that  this  development  represents  merely 
a  transitional  stage.  It  tried,  after  all,  to  put  the  new 
wine  in  the  old  bottles.  It  did  not  achieve  a  free  and 
unbiased  formulation  of  the  meaning  of  the  power  to 
direct  nature's  forces  through  knowledge — that  is, 
purposeful,  experimental  action  acting  to  reshape  be- 
liefs and  institutions.  The  ancient  tradition  was  still 
strong  enough  to  project  itself  unconsciously  into  men's 
ways  of  thinking,  and  to  hamper  and  compromise  the 
expression  of  the  really  modern  forces  and  aims.  Es- 
sential philosophic  reconstruction  represents  an  attempt 
to  state  these  causes  and  results  in  a  way  freed  from 
incompatible  inherited  factors.  It  will  regard  intelli- 
gence not  as  the  original  shaper  and  final  cause  of 
things,  but  as  the  purposeful  energetic  re-shaper  of 
those  phases  of  nature  and  life  that  obstruct  social 
well-being.  It  esteems  the  individual  not  as  an  exag- 
geratedly self-sufficient  Ego  which  by  some  magic 
creates  the  world,  but  as  the  agent  who  is  responsible 
through  initiative,  inventiveness  and  intelligently 
directed  labor  for  re-creating  the  world,  transforming 
it  into  an  instrument  and  possession  of  intelligence. 

The    train    of   ideas    represented    by    the    Baconian 
Knowledge  is  Power  thus  failed  in  getting  an  emanci- 


52         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

pated  and  independent  expression.  These  become  hope- 
lessly entangled  in  standpoints  and  prepossessions  that 
embodied  a  social,  political  and  scientific  tradition  with 
which  they  were  completely  incompatible.  The  ob- 
scurity, the  confusion  of  modern  philosophy  is  the 
product  of  this  attempt  to  combine  two  things  which 
cannot  possibly  be  combined  either  logically  or  morally. 
Philosophic  reconstruction  for  the  present  is  thus  the 
endeavor  to  undo  the  entanglement  and  to  permit  the 
Baconian  aspirations  to  come  to  a  free  and  un- 
hindered expression.  In  succeeding  lectures  we  shall 
consider  the  needed  reconstruction  as  it  affects  certain 
classic  philosophic  antitheses,  like  those  of  experience 
and  reason,  the  real  and  the  ideal.  But  first  we  shall 
have  to  consider  the  modifying  effect  exercised  upon 
philosophy  by  that  changed  conception  of  nature,  ani- 
mate and  inanimate,  which  we  owe  to  the  progress  of 
science. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  IN  RECONSTRUC- 
TION OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Philosophy  starts  from  some  deep  and  wide  way  of 
responding  to  the  difficulties  life  presents,  but  it  grows 
only  when  material  is  at  hand  for  making  this  practical 
response  conscious,  articulate  and  communicable.  Ac- 
companying the  economic,  political  and  ecclesiastical 
changes  which  were  alluded  to  in  an  earlier  lecture,  was 
a  scientific  revolution  enormous  in  scope  and  leaving  un- 
changed almost  no  detail  of  belief  about  nature,  physical 
and  human.  In  part  this  scientific  transformation  was 
produced  by  just  the  change  in  practical  attitude  and 
temper.  But  as  it  progressed,  it  furnished  that  change 
an  appropriate  vocabulary,  congenial  to  its  needs,  and 
made  it  articulate.  The  advance  of  science  in  its  larger 
generalizations  and  in  its  specific  detail  of  fact  supplied 
precisely  that  intellectual  equipment  of  ideas  and  con- 
crete fact  thai  was  needed  in  order  to  formulate, 
precipitate,  communicate  and  propagate  the  new  dispo- 
sition. Today,  accordingly,  we  shall  deal  with  those 
contrasting  conceptions  of  the  structure  and  constitu- 
tion of  Nature,  which  when  they  are  accepted  on  the 

53 


54         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

authority  of  science  (alleged  or  real),  form  the  intel- 
lectual framework  of  philosophy. 

Contrasting  conceptions  of  ancient  and  modern 
science  have  been  selected.  For  I  see  no  way  in  which 
the  truly  philosophic  import  of  the  picture  of  the 
world  painted  by  modern  science  can  be  appreciated 
except  to  exhibit  it  in  contrast  with  that  earlier  picture 
which  gave  classic  metaphysics  its  intellectual  founda- 
tion and  confirmation.  The  world  in  which  philoso- 
phers once  put  their  trust  was  a  closed  world,  a  world 
consisting  internally  of  a  limited  number  of  fixed  forms, 
and  having  definite  boundaries  externally.  The  world 
of  modern  science  is  an  open  world,  a  world  varying  in- 
definitely without  the  possibility  of  assignable  limit  in 
its  internal  make-up,  a  world  stretching  beyond  any 
assignable  bounds  externally.  Again,  the  world  in 
which  even  the  most  intelligent  men  of  olden  times 
thought  they  lived  was  a  fixed  world,  a  realm  where 
changes  went  on  only  within  immutable  limits  of  rest 
and  permanence,  and  a  world  where  the  fixed  and  un- 
moving  was,  as  we  have  already  noted,  higher  in  quality 
and  authority  than  the  moving  and  altering.  And  in 
the  third  place,  the  world  which  men  once  saw  with 
their  eyes,  portrayed  in  their  imaginations  and  re- 
peated in  their  plans  of  conduct,  was  a  world  of  a 
limited  number  of  classes,  kinds,  forms,  distinct  in 
quality   (as  kinds  and  species  must  be  distinct)    and 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  55 

arranged     in     a    graded     order     of     superiority     and 
inferiority. 

It  is  not  easy  to  recall  the  image  of  the  universe  which 
was  taken  for  granted  in  the  world  tradition.  In  spite 
of  its  dramatic  rendering  (as  in  Dante),  of  the  dialecti- 
cal elaborations  of  Aristotle  and  St.  Thomas,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  it  held  men's  minds  captive  until  the  last 
three  hundred  years,  and  that  its  overthrow  involved  a 
religious  upheaval,  it  is  already  dim,  faded  and  remote. 
Even  as  a  separate  and  abstract  thing  of  theory  it  is 
not  easy  to  recover. 

As  something  pervasive,  interwoven  with  all  the  de- 
tails of  reflection  and  observation,  with  the  plans  and 
rules  of  behavior,  it  is  impossible  to  call  it  back  again. 
Yet,  as  best  we  can,  we  need  to  put  before  our  minds  a 
definitely  enclosed  universe,  something  which  can  be 
called  a  universe  in  a  literal  and  visible  sense,  having  the 
earth  at  its  fixed  and  unchanging  centre  and  at  a 
fixed  circumference  the  heavenly  arch  of  fixed  stars 
moving  in  an  eternal  round  of  divine  ether,  hemming  in 
all  things  and  keeping  them  forever  at  one  and  in  order. 
The  earth,  though  at  the  centre,  is  the  coarsest,  gross- 
est, most  material,  least  significant  and  good  (or  per- 
fect) of  the  parts  of  this  closed  world.  It  is  the  scene 
of  maximum  fluctuation  and  vicissitude.  It  is  the  least 
rational,  and  therefore  the  least  notable,  or  knowable; 
it  offers   the   least   to   reward   contemplation,  provoke 


56         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

admiration  and  govern  conduct.  Between  this  grossly 
material  centre  and  the  immaterial,  spiritual  and  eternal 
heavens  lie  a  definite  series  of  regions  of  moon,  planets, 
sun,  etc.,  each  of  which  gains  in  rank,  value,  rationality 
and  true  being  as  it  is  farther  from  earth  and  nearer 
the  heavens.  Each  of  these  regions  is  composed  of  its 
own  appropriate  stuff  of  earth,  water,  air,  fire  in  its 
own  dominant  degree,  until  we  reach  the  heavenly  firma- 
ment which  transcends  all  these  principles,  being  con- 
stituted, as  was  just  said,  of  that  immaterial,  inalterable 
energy  called  ether. 

Within  this  tight  and  pent  in  universe,  changes  take 
place  of  course.  But  they  are  only  of  a  small  number 
of  fixed  kinds ;  and  they  operate  only  within  fixed  limits. 
Each  kind  of  stuff  has  its  own  appropriate  motion.  It 
is  the  nature  of  earthly  things  to  be  heavy,  since  they 
are  gross,  and  hence  to  move  downward.  Fire  and 
superior  things  are  light  and  hence  move  upward  to 
their  proper  place ;  air  rises  only  to  the  plane  of  the 
planets,  where  it  then  takes  its  back  and  forth  motion 
which  naturally  belongs  to  it,  as  is  evident  in  the  winds 
and  in  respiration.  Ether  being  the  highest  of  all 
physical  things  has  a  purely  circular  movement.  The' 
daily  return  of  the  fixed  stars  is  the  closest  possible 
approximation  to  eternity,  and  to  the  self-involved  revo- 
lution of  mind  upon  its  own  ideal  axis  of  reason.  Upon 
the  earth  in  virtue  of  its  earthly  nature — or  rather  its 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  57 

lack  of  virtue — is  a  scene  of  mere  change.  Mere  flux, 
aimless  and  meaningless,  starts  at  no  definite  point  and 
arrives  at  nothing,  amounts  to  nothing.  Mere  changes 
of  quantity,  all  purely  mechanical  changes,  are  of  this 
kind.  They  are  like  the  shiftings  of  the  sands  by  the 
sea.  They  may  be  sensed,  but  they  cannot  be  "  noted  " 
or  understood ;  they  lack  fixed  limits  which  govern  them. 
They  are  contemptible.  They  are  casual,  the  sport  of 
accident. 

Only  changes  which  lead  to  some  defined  or  fixed  out- 
come of  form  are  of  any  account  and  can  have  any 
account — any  logos  or  reason — made  of  them.  The 
growth  of  plants  and  animals  illustrates  the  highest 
kind  of  change  which  is  possible  in  the  sublunary  or 
mundane  sphere.  They  go  from  one  definite  fixed  form 
to  another.  Oaks  generate  only  oaks,  oysters  only 
oysters,  man  only  man.  The  material  factor  of 
mechanical  production  enters  in,  but  enters  in  as  acci- 
dent to  prevent  the  full  consummation  of  the  type  of  the 
species,  and  to  bring  about  the  meaningless  variations 
which  diversify  various  oaks  or  oysters  from  one  an- 
other; or  in  extreme  cases  to  produce  freaks,  sports, 
monsters,  three-handed  or  four-toed  men.  Aside  from 
accidental  and  undesirable  variations,  each  individual 
has  a  fixed  career  to  pursue,  a  fixed  path  in  which  to 
travel.  Terms  which  sound  modern,  words  like  poten- 
tiality and  development  abound  in  Aristotelian  thought, 


58         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  have  misled  some  into  reading  into  his  thought 
modern  meanings.  But  the  significance  of  these  words 
in  classic  and  medieval  thought  is  rigidly  determined  by 
their  context.  Development  holds  merely  of  the  course 
of  changes  which  takes  place  within  a  particular  mem- 
ber of  the  species.  It  is  only  a  name  for  the  prede- 
termined movement  from  the  acorn  to  the  oak  tree.  It 
takes  place  not  in  things  generally  but  only  in  some 
one  of  the  numerically  insignificant  members  of  the  oak 
species.  Development,  evolution,  never  means,  as  in 
modern  science,  origin  of  new  forms,  a  mutation  from 
an  old  species,  but  only  the  monotonous  traversing  of  a 
previously  plotted  cycle  of  change.  So  potentiality 
never  means,  as  in  modern  life,  the  possibility  of  novelty, 
of  invention,  of  radical  deviation,  but  only  that 
principle  in  virtue  of  which  the  acorn  becomes  the  oak. 
Technically,  it  is  the  capacity  for  movement  between 
opposites.  Only  the  cold  can  become  hot ;  only  the  dry 
can  become  wet ;  only  the  babe  can  become  a  man ;  the 
seed  the  full-grown  wheat  and  so  on.  Potentiality  in- 
stead of  implying  the  emergence  of  anything  novel  means 
merely  the  facility  with  which  a  particular  thing  re- 
peats the  recurrent  processes  of  its  kind,  and  thus 
becomes  a  specific  case  of  the  eternal  forms  in  and 
through  which  all  things  are  constituted. 

In  spite  of  the  almost  infinite  numerical  diversity  of 
individuals,  there  are  only  a  limited  number  of  species, 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  59 

kinds  or  sorts.  And  the  world  is  essentially  a  world 
which  falls  into  sorts ;  it  is  pre-arranged  into  distinct 
classes.  Moreover,  just  as  we  naturally  arrange  plants 
and  animals  into  series,  ranks  and  grades,  from  the 
lower  to  the  highest,  so  with  all  things  in  the  universe. 
The  distinct  classes  to  which  things  belong  by  their 
very  nature  form  a  hierarchical  order.  There  are 
castes  in  nature.  The  universe  is  constituted  on  an 
aristocratic,  one  can  truly  say  a  feudal,  plan.  Species, 
classes  do  not  mix  or  overlap — except  in  cases  of  acci- 
dent, and  to  the  result  of  chaos.  Otherwise,  everything 
belongs  in  advance  to  a  certain  class,  and  the  class  has 
its  own  fixed  place  in  the  hierarchy  of  Being.  The 
universe  is  indeed  a  tidy  spot  whose  purity  is  interfered 
with  only  by  those  irregular  changes  in  individuals 
which  are  due  to  the  presence  of  an  obdurate  matter 
that  refuses  to  yield  itself  wholly  to  rule  and  form. 
Otherwise  it  is  a  universe  with  a  fixed  place  for  every- 
thing and  where  everything  knows  its  place,  its  station 
and  class,  and  keeps  it.  Hence  what  are  known  techni- 
cally as  final  and  formal  causes  are  supreme,  and 
efficient  causes  are  relegated  to  an  inferior  place.  The 
so-called  final  cause  is  just  a  name  for  the  fact  that 
there  is  some  fixed  form  characteristic  of  a  class  or  sort 
of  things  which  governs  the  changes  going  on,  so  that 
they  tend  toward  it  as  their  end  and  goal,  the  fulfilment 
of  their  true  nature.    The  supralunar  region  is  the  end 


60         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

or  final  cause  of  the  proper  movements  of  air  and  fire; 
the  earth  of  the  motions  of  crass,  heavy  things ;  the  oak 
of  the  acorn ;  the  mature  form  in  general  of  the  germi- 
nal. 

The  "  efficient  cause,"  that  which  produces  and  in- 
stigates a  movement  is  only  some  external  change  as 
it  accidentally  gives  a  kind  of  push  to  an  immature, 
imperfect  being  and  starts  it  moving  toward  its  per- 
fected or  fulfilled  form.  The  final  cause  is  the  per- 
fected form  regarded  as  the  explanation  or  reason  of 
prior  changes.  When  it  is  not  taken  in  reference  to  the 
changes  completed  and  brought  to  rest  in  it,  but  in 
itself  it  is  the  "formal  cause":  The  inherent  nature 
or  character  which  "  makes  "  or  constitutes  a  thing 
what  it  is  so  far  as  it  truly  is,  namely,  what  it  is  so  far 
as  it  does  not  change.  Logically  and  practically  all  of 
the  traits  which  have  been  enumerated  cohere.  Attack 
one  and  you  attack  all.  When  any  one  is  undermined, 
all  go.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  intellectual  modifica- 
tion of  the  last  few  centuries  may  truly  be  called  a 
revolution.  It  has  substituted  a  conception  of  the  world 
differing  at  every  point.  It  makes  little  matter  at  what 
point  you  commence  to  trace  the  difference,  you  find 
yourself  carried  into  all  other  points. 

Instead  of  a  closed  universe,  science  now  presents  us 
with  one  infinite  in  space  and  time,  having  no  limits  here 
or  there,  at  this  end,  so  to  speak,  or  at  that,  and  as 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  61 

infinitely  complex  in  internal  structure  as  it  is  infinite 
in  extent.  Hence  it  is  also  an  open  world,  an  infinitely 
variegated  one,  a  world  which  in  the  old  sense  can 
hardly  be  called  a  universe  at  all;  so  multiplex  and 
far-reaching  that  it  cannot  be  summed  up  and  grasped 
in  any  one  formula.  And  change  rather  than  fixity  is 
now  a  measure  of  "  reality  "  or  energy  of  being ;  change 
is  omnipresent.  The  laws  in  which  the  modern  man 
of  science  is  interested  are  laws  of  motion,  of  generation 
and  consequence.  He  speaks  of  law  where  the  ancients 
spoke  of  kind  and  essence,  because  what  he  wants  is  a 
correlation  of  changes,  an  ability  to  detect  one  change 
occurring  in  correspondence  with  another.  He  does  not 
try  to  define  and  delimit  something  remaining  constant 
in  change.  He  tries  to  describe  a  constant  order  of 
change.  And  while  the  word  "constant"  appears  in 
both  statements,  the  meaning  of  the  word  is  not  the 
same.  In  one  case,  we  are  dealing  with  something  con- 
stant in  existence,  physical  or  metaphysical;  u in  the 
other  case,  with  something  constant  in  function  and 
operation.  One  is  a  form  of  independent  being;  the 
other  is  a  formula  of  description  and  calculation  of 
interdependent  changes. 

In  short,  classic  thought  accepted  a  feudally 
arranged  order  of  classes  or  kinds,  each  "  holding " 
from  a  superior  and  in  turn  giving  the  rule  of  conduct 
and   service   to   an   inferior.      This   trait   reflects   and 


62         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

parallels  most  closely  the  social  situation  we  were  con- 
sidering at  the  last  hour.  We  have  a  fairly  definite 
notion  of  society  as  organized  upon  the  feudal  basis. 
The  family  principle,  the  principle  of  kinship  is  strong, 
and  especially  is  this  true  as  we  ascend  in  the  social 
scale.  At  the  lower  end,  individuals  may  be  lost  more  or 
less  in  the  mass.  Since  all  are  parts  of  the  common 
herd,  there  is  nothing  especial  to  distinguish  their  birth. 
But  among  the  privileged  and  ruling  class  the  case  is 
quite  different.  The  tie  of  kinship  at  once  marks  a  group 
off  externally  and  gives  it  distinction,  and  internally 
holds  all  its  members  together.  Kinship,  kind,  class, 
genus  are  synonymous  terms,  starting  from  social  and 
concrete  facts  and  going  to  the  technical  and  abstract. 
For  kinship  is  a  sign  of  a  common  nature,  of  something 
universal  and  permanent  running  through  all  particular 
individuals,  and  giving  them  a  real  and  objective  unity. 
Because  such  and  such  persons  are  kin  they  are  really, 
and  not  merely  conventionally,  marked  off  into  a  class 
having  something  unique  about  it.  All  contemporary 
members  are  bound  into  an  objective  unity  which  in- 
cludes ancestors  and  descendants  and  excludes  all  who 
belong  to  another  kin  or  kind.  Assuredly  this  parcel- 
ling out  of  the  world  into  separate  kinds,  each  having 
its  qualitatively  distinct  nature  in  contrast  with  other 
species,  binding  numerically  distinct  individuals  to- 
gether, and  preventing  their  diversities  from  exceeding 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  63 

fixed  bounds,  may  without  exaggeration  be  called  a  pro- 
jection of  the  family  principle  into  the  world  at  large. 

In  a  feudally  organized  society,  moreover,  each  kin- 
ship group  or  species  occupies  a  definite  place.  It  is 
marked  by  the  possession  of  a  specific  rank  higher  or 
lower  with  respect  to  other  grades.  This  position  con- 
fers upon  it  certain  privileges,  enabling  it  to  enforce 
certain  claims  upon  those  lower  in  the  scale  and  en- 
tailing upon  it  certain  services  and  homage  to  be  ren- 
dered to  superiors.  The  relationship  of  causation,  so 
to  speak,  is  up  and  down.  Influence,  power,  proceeds 
from  above  to  below;  the  activities  of  the  inferior  are 
performed  with  respect,  quite  literally,  to  what  is  above. 
Action  and  reaction  are  far  from  being  equal  and  in 
opposite  directions.  All  action  is  of  one  sort,  of  the 
nature  of  lordship,  and  proceeds  from  the  higher  to 
the  lower.  Reaction  is  of  the  nature  of  subjection  and 
deference  and  proceeds  from  lower  to  higher.  The 
classic  theory  of  the  constitution  of  the  world  corre- 
sponds point  by  point  to  this  ordering  of  classes  in  a 
scale  of  dignity  and  power. 

A  third  trait  assigned  by  historians  to  feudalism  is  that 
the  ordering  of  ranks  centres  about  armed  service  and 
the  relationship  of  armed  defense  and  protection.  I  am 
afraid  that  what  has  already  been  said  about  the  paral- 
lelism of  ancient  cosmology  with  social  organization  may 
seem  a  fanciful  analogy;  and  if  a  comparison  is  also 


64         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

drawn  in  this  last  regard,  there  will  be  no  doubt  in 
your  minds  that  a  metaphor  is  being  forced.  Such  is 
truly  the  case  if  we  take  the  comparison  too  literally. 
But  not  so,  if  we  confine  our  attention  to  the  notion 
of  rule  and  command  implied  in  both.  Attention  has 
already  been  called  to  the  meaning  that  is  now  given 
the  term  law — a  constant  relationship  among  changes. 
Nevertheless,  we  often  hear  about  laws  which  "  govern  " 
events,  and  it  often  seems  to  be  thought  that  phenomena 
would  be  utterly  disorderly  were  there  not  laws  to 
keep  them  in  order.  This  way  of  thinking  is  a  survival 
of  reading  social  relationships  into  nature — not  neces- 
sarily a  feudal  relationship,  but  the  relation  of  ruler 
and  ruled,  sovereign  and  subject.  Law  is  assimilated 
to  a  command  or  order.  If  the  factor  of  personal  will 
is  eliminated  (as  it  was  in  the  best  Greek  thought) 
still  the  idea  of  law  or  universal  is  impregnated  with  the 
sense  of  a  guiding  and  ruling  influence  exerted  from 
above  on  what  is  naturally  inferior  to  it.  The  universal 
governs  as  the  end  and  model  which  the  artisan  has  in 
mind  "  governs  "  his  movements.  The  Middle  Ages 
added  to  this  Greek  idea  of  control  the  idea  of  a 
command  proceeding  from  a  superior  will;  and  hence 
thought  of  the  operations  of  nature  as  if  they  were  a 
fulfilment  of  a  task  set  by  one  who  had  authority  to 
direct  action. 

The  traits  of  the  picture  of  nature  drawn  by  modern 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  65 

science  fairly  spring  by  contrast  into  high  relief. 
Modern  science  took  its  first  step  when  daring  astrono- 
mers abolished  the  distinction  of  high,  sublime  and  ideal 
forces  operating  in  the  heavens  from  lower  and  material 
forces  actuating  terrestrial  events.  The  supposed 
heterogeneity  of  substances  and  forces  between  heaven 
and  earth  was  denied.  It  was  asserted  that  the  same 
laws  hold  everywhere,  that  there  is  homogeneity  of 
material  and  process  everywhere  throughout  nature. 
The  remote  and  esthetically  sublime  is  to  be  scientifically 
described  and  explained  in  terms  of  homely  familiar 
events  and  forces.  The  material  of  direct  handling  and 
observation  is  that  of  which  we  are  surest;  it  is  the 
better  known.  Until  we  can  convert  the  grosser  and 
more  superficial  observations  of  far-away  things  in 
the  heavens  into  elements  identical  with  those  of  things 
directly  at  hand,  they  remain  blind  and  not  understood. 
Instead  of  presenting  superior  worth,  they  present  only 
problems.  They  are  not  means  of  enlightenment  but 
challenges.  The  earth  is  not  superior  in  rank  to  sun, 
moon  and  stars,  but  it  is  equal  in  dignity,  and  its  occur- 
rences give  the  key  to  the  understanding  of  celestial 
existences.  Being  at  hand,  they  are  also  capable  of 
being  brought  under  our  hand;  they  can  be  manipu- 
lated, broken  up,  resolved  into  elements  which  can  be 
managed,  combined  at  will  in  old  and  new  forms.  The 
net  result  may  be  termed,  I  think,  without  any  great 


66         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

forcing,  the  substitution  of  a  democracy  of  individual 
facts  equal  in  rank  for  the  feudal  system  of  an  ordered 
gradation  of  general  classes  of  unequal  rank. 

One  important  incident  of  the  new  science  was  the 
destruction  of  the  idea  that  the  earth  is  the  centre  of 
the  universe.  When  the  idea  of  a  fixed  centre  went, 
there  went  with  it  the  idea  of  a  closed  universe  and  a 
circumscribing  heavenly  boundary.  To  the  Greek  sense, 
just  because  its  theory  of  knowing  was  dominated  by 
esthetic  considerations,  the  finite  was  the  perfect. 
Literally,  the  finite  was  the  finished,  the  ended,  the 
completed,  that  with  no  ragged  edges  and  unaccountable 
operations.  The  infinite  or  limitless  was  lacking  in 
character  just  because  it  was  in-finite.  Being  every- 
thing, it  was  nothing.  It  was  unformed  and  chaotic, 
uncontrolled  and  unruly,  the  source  of  incalculable 
deviations  and  accidents.  Our  present  feeling  that  as- 
sociates infinity  with  boundless  power,  with  capacity 
for  expansion  that  knows  no  end,  with  the  delight  in  a 
progress  that  has  no  external  limit,  would  be  incom- 
prehensible were  it  not  that  interest  has  shifted  from 
the  esthetic  to  the  practical ;  from  interest  in  beholding 
a  harmonious  and  complete  scene  to  interest  in  trans- 
forming an  inharmonious  one.  One  has  only  to  read 
the  authors  of  the  transition  period,  say  Giordano 
Bruno,  to  realize  what  a  pent-in,  suffocating  sensation 
they  associated  with  a  closed,  finite  world,  and  what  a 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  67 

feeling  of  exhilaration,  expansion  and  boundless  pos- 
sibility was  aroused  in  them  by  the  thought  of  a  world 
infinite  in  stretch  of  space  and  time,  and  composed 
internally  of  infinitesimal  infinitely  numerous  elements. 
That  which  the  Greeks  withdrew  from  with  repulsion 
they  welcomed  with  an  intoxicated  sense  of  adventure. 
The  infinite  meant,  it  was  true,  something  forever  un- 
traversed  even  by  thought,  and  hence  something  forever 
unknown — no  matter  how  great  attainment  in  learn- 
ing. But  this  "  forever  unknown "  instead  of  being 
chilling  and  repelling  was  now  an  inspiring  challenge 
to  ever-renewed  inquiry,  and  an  assurance  of  inexhaust- 
ible possibilities  of  progress. 

The  student  of  history  knows  well  that  the  Greeks 
made  great  progress  in  the  science  of  mechanics  as  well 
as  of  geometry.  At  first  sight,  it  appears  strange  that 
with  this  advance  in  mechanics  so  little  advance  was 
made  in  the  direction  of  modern  science.  The  seeming 
paradox  impels  us  to  ask  why  it  was  that  mechanics 
remained  a  separate  science,  why  it  was  not  used  in 
description  and  explanation  of  natural  phenomena  after 
the  manner  of  Galileo  and  Newton.  The  answer  is 
found  in  the  social  parallelism  already  mentioned. 
Socially  speaking,  machines,  tools,  were  devices  em- 
ployed by  artisans.  The  science  of  mechanics  had  to 
do  with  the  kind  of  things  employed  by  human  mechan- 
ics, and  mechanics  were  base  fellows.    They  were  at  the 


68         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

lower  end  of  the  social  scale,  and  how  could  light  on  the 
heavens,  the  highest,  be  derived  from  them?  The  appli- 
cation of  considerations  of  mechanics  to  natural 
phenomena  would  moreover  have  implied  an  interest  in 
the  practical  control  and  utilization  of  phenomena 
which  was  totally  incompatible  with  the  importance 
attached  to  final  causes  as  fixed  determiners  of  nature. 
All  the  scientific  reformers  of  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  strikingly  agree  in  regarding  the  doc- 
trine of  final  causes  as  the  cause  of  the  failure  of  science. 
Why?  Because  this  doctrine  taught  that  the  processes 
of  nature  are  held  in  bondage  to  certain  fixed  ends  which 
they  must  tend  to  realize.  Nature  was  kept  in  lead- 
ing strings ;  it  was  cramped  down  to  production  of  a 
limited  number  of  stereotyped  results.  Only  a  com- 
paratively small  number  of  things  could  be  brought 
into  being,  and  these  few  must  be  similar  to  the  ends 
which  similar  cycles  of  change  had  effected  in  the  past. 
The  scope  of  inquiry  and  understanding  was  limited  to 
the  narrow  round  of  processes  eventuating  in  the  fixed 
ends  which  the  observed  world  offered  to  view.  At 
best,  invention  and  production  of  new  results  by  use  of 
machines  and  tools  must  be  restricted  to  articles  of 
transient  dignity  and  bodily,  not  intellectual,  use. 

When  the  rigid  clamp  of  fixed  ends  was  taken  off 
from  nature,  observation  and  imagination  were  emanci- 
pated, and  experimental  control  for  scientific  and  prac- 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  69 

tical  purposes  enormously  stimulated.  Because  natural 
processes  were  no  longer  restricted  to  a  fixed  number 
of  immovable  ends  or  results,  anything  might  conceiv- 
ably happen.  It  was  only  a  question  of  what  elements 
could  be  brought  into  juxtaposition  so  that  they  would 
work  upon  one  another.  Immediatel}< ,  mechanics  ceased 
to  be  a  separate  science  and  became  an  organ  for  at- 
tacking nature.  The  mechanics  of  the  lever,  wheel,  pul- 
ley and  inclined  plane  told  accurately  what  happens 
when  things  in  space  are  used  to  move  one  another 
during  definite  periods  of  time.  The  whole  of  nature 
became  a  scene  of  pushes  and  pulls,  of  cogs  and  levers, 
of  motions  of  parts  or  elements  to  which  the  formulae 
of  movements  produced  by  well-known  machines  were 
directly  applicable. 

The  banishing  of  ends  and  forms  from  the  universe 
has  seemed  to  many  an  ideal  and  spiritual  impoverish- 
ment. When  nature  was  regarded  as  a  set  of  mechanical 
interactions,  it  apparently  lost  all  meaning  and  pur- 
pose. Its  glory  departed.  Elimination  of  differences 
of  quality  deprived  it  of  beauty.  Denial  to  nature  of 
all  inherent  longings  and  aspiring  tendencies  toward 
ideal  ends  removed  nature  and  natural  science  from 
contact  with  poetry,  religion  and  divine  things.  There 
seemed  to  be  left  only  a  harsh,  brutal  despiritualized 
exhibition  of  mechanical  forces.  As  a  consequence,  it 
has    seemed   to   many  philosophers   that   one  of  their 


70         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

chief  problems  was  to  reconcile  the  existence  of  this 
purely  mechanical  world  with  belief  in  objective  ration- 
ality and  purpose — to  save  life  from  a  degrading  ma- 
terialism. Hence  many  sought  to  re-attain  by  way  of 
an  analysis  of  the  process  of  knowing,  or  epistemology, 
that  belief  in  the  superiority  of  Ideal  Being  which  had 
anciently  been  maintained  on  the  basis  of  cosmology. 
But  when  it  is  recognized  that  the  mechanical  view  is 
determined  by  the  requirements  of  an  experimental  con- 
trol of  natural  energies,  this  problem  of  reconciliation 
no  longer  vexes  us.  Fixed  forms  and  ends,  let  us  recall, 
mark  fixed  limits  to  change.  Hence  they  make  futile  all 
human  efforts  to  produce  and  regulate  change  except 
within  narrow  and  unimportant  limits.  They  paralyze 
constructive  human  inventions  by  a  theory  which  con- 
demns them  in  advance  to  failure.  Human  activity 
can  conform  only  to  ends  already  set  by  nature.  It 
was  not  till  ends  were  banished  from  nature  that  pur- 
poses became  important  as  factors  in  human  minds 
capable  of  reshaping  existence.  A  natural  world  that 
does  not  subsist  for  the  sake  of  realizing  a  fixed  set  of 
ends  is  relatively  malleable  and  plastic ;  it  may  be  used 
for  this  end  or  that.  That  nature  can  be  known  through 
the  application  of  mechanical  formulae  is  the  prime 
condition  of  turning  it  to  human  account.  Tools, 
machines  are  means  to  be  utilized.  Only  when  nature  is 
regarded   as   mechanical,    is    systematic   invention    and 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  71 

construction  of  machines  relevant  to  nature's  activities. 
Nature  is  subdued  to  human  purpose  because  it  is  no 
longer  the  slave  of  metaphysical  and  theological  pur- 
pose. 

Bergson  has  pointed  out  that  man  might  well  be  called 
Home  Faber.  He  is  distinguished  as  the  tool-making 
animal.  This  has  held  good  since  man  was  man ;  but 
till  nature  was  construed  in  mechanical  terms,  the  mak- 
ing of  tools  with  which  to  attack  and  transform  nature 
was  sporadic  and  accidental.  Under  such  circum- 
stances it  would  not  have  occurred  even  to  a  Bergson 
that  man's  tool-making  capacity  was  so  important  and 
fundamental  that  it  could  be  used  to  define  him.  The 
very  things  that  make  the  nature  of  the  mechanical- 
physical  scientist  esthetically  blank  and  dull  are  the 
things  which  render  nature  amenable  to  human  control. 
When  qualities  were  subordinated  to  quantitative  and 
mathematical  relationships,  color,  music  and  form  dis- 
appeared from  the  object  of  the  scientist's  inquiry  as 
such.  But  the  remaining  properties  of  weight,  exten- 
sion, numerable  velocity  of  movement  and  so  on  were 
just  the  qualities  which  lent  themselves  to  the  substi- 
tution of  one  thing  for  another,  to  the  conversion  of  one 
form  of  energy  into  another ;  to  the  effecting  of  trans- 
formations. When  chemical  fertilizers  can  be  used  in 
place  of  animal  manures,  when  improved  grain  and 
cattle  can  be  purposefully  bred  from  inferior  animals 


72         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  grasses,  when  mechanical  energy  can  be  converted 
into  heat  and  electricity  into  mechanical  energy,  man 
gains  power  to  manipulate  nature.  Most  of  all  he  gains 
power  to  frame  new  ends  and  aims  and  to  proceed  in 
regular  system  to  their  actualization.  Only  indefinite 
substitution  and  convertibility  regardless  of  quality 
render  nature  manageable.  The  mechanization  of 
nature  is  the  condition  of  a  practical  and  progressive 
idealism  in  action. 

It  thus  turns  out  that  the  old,  old  dread  and  dislike 
of  matter  as  something  opposed  to  mind  and  threaten- 
ing it,  to  be  kept  within  the  narrowest  bounds  of 
recognition ;  something  to  be  denied  so  far  as  possible 
lest  it  encroach  upon  ideal  purposes  and  finally  exclude 
them  from  the  real  world,  is  as  absurd  practically  as 
it  was  impotent  intellectually.  Judged  from  the  only 
scientific  standpoint,  what  it  does  and  how  it  functions, 
matter  means  conditions.  To  respect  matter  means 
to  respect  the  conditions  of  achievement ;  conditions 
which  hinder  and  obstruct  and  which  have  to  be  changed, 
conditions  which  help  and  further  and  which  can  be 
used  to  modify  obstructions  and  attain  ends.  Only  as 
men  have  learned  to  pay  sincere  and  persistent  regard 
to  matter,  to  the  conditions  upon  which  depends  nega- 
tively and  positively  the  success  of  all  endeavor,  have 
they  shown  sincere  and  fruitful  respect  for  ends  and 
purposes.     To  profess  to  have  an  aim  and  then  neglect 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  73 

the  means  of  its  execution  is  self-delusion  of  the  most 
dangerous  sort.  Education  and  morals  will  begin  to 
find  themselves  on  the  same  road  of  advance  that  say 
chemical  industry  and  medicine  have  found  for  them- 
selves when  they  too  learn  fully  the  lesson  of  whole- 
hearted and  unremitting  attention  to  means  and  condi- 
tions— that  is,  to  what  mankind  so  long  despised  as 
material  and  mechanical.  When  we  take  means  for  ends 
we  indeed  fall  into  moral  materialism.  But  when  we 
take  ends  without  regard  to  means  we  degenerate  into 
sentimentalism.  In  the  name  of  the  ideal  we  fall  back 
upon  mere  luck  and  chance  and  magic  or  exhortation 
and  preaching;  or  else  upon  a  fanaticism  that  will 
force  the  realization  of  preconceived  ends  at  any 
cost. 

I  have  touched  in  this  lecture  upon  many  things  in 
a  cursory  way.  Yet  there  has  been  but  one  point  in 
mind.  The  revolution  in  our  conceptions  of  nature  and 
in  our  methods  of  knowing  it  has  bred  a  new  temper  of 
imagination  and  aspiration.  It  has  confirmed  the  new 
attitude  generated  by  economic  and  political  changes. 
It  has  supplied  this  attitude  with  definite  intellectual 
material  with  which  to  formulate  and  justify  itself. 

In  the  first  lecture  it  was  noted  that  in  Greek  life 
prosaic  matter  of  fact  or  empirical  knowledge  was  at 
a  great  disadvantage  as  compared  with  the  imaginative 
beliefs   that  were  bound   up  with   special   institutions 


74         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  moral  habitudes.  Now  this  empirical  knowledge 
has  grown  till  it  has  broken  its  low  and  limited  sphere 
of  application  and  esteem.  It  has  itself  become  an 
organ  of  inspiring  imagination  through  introducing 
ideas  of  boundless  possibility,  indefinite  progress,  free 
movement,  equal  opportunity  irrespective  of  fixed  limits. 
It  has  reshaped  social  institutions,  and  in  so  far  de- 
veloped a  new  morale.  It  has  achieved  ideal  values. 
It  is  convertible  into  creative  and  constructive  philoso- 
phy- 

Convertible,  however,  rather  than  already  converted. 
When  we  consider  how  deeply  embedded  in  customs  of 
thought  and  action  the  classic  philosophy  came  to  be 
and  how  congenial  it  is  to  man's  more  spontaneous  be- 
liefs, the  throes  that  attended  its  birth  are  not  to  be 
wondered  at.  We  should  rather  wonder  that  a  view  so 
upsetting,  so  undermining,  made  its  way  without  more 
persecutions,  martyrdoms  and  disturbances.  It  cer- 
tainly is  not  surprising  that  its  complete  and  consistent 
formulation  in  philosophy  has  been  long  delayed.  The 
main  efforts  of  thinkers  were  inevitably  directed  to 
minimizing  the  shock  of  change,  easing  the  strains  of 
transition,  mediating  and  reconciling.  When  we  look 
back  upon  almost  all  of  the  thinkers  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  upon  all  excepting  those  who 
were  avowedly  sceptical  and  revolutionary,  what  strikes 
us   is    the   amount   of   traditional   subject-matter    and 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  FACTOR  75 

method  that  is  to  be  found  even  among  those  who  were 
regarded  as  most  advanced.  Men  cannot  easily  throw 
off  their  old  habits  of  thinking,  and  never  can  throw  off 
all  of  them  at  once.  In  developing,  teaching  and  re- 
ceiving new  ideas  we  are  compelled  to  use  some  of  the 
old  ones  as  tools  of  understanding  and  communication. 
Only  piecemeal,  step-by-step,  could  the  full  import  of 
the  new  science  be  grasped.  Roughly  speaking,  the 
seventeenth  century  witnessed  its  application  in 
astronomy  and  general  cosmology;  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury in  physics  and  chemistry;  the  nineteenth  century 
undertook  an  application  in  geology  and  the  biological 
sciences. 

It  was  said  that  it  has  now  become  extremely  dif- 
ficult to  recover  the  view  of  the  world  which  univer- 
sally obtained  in  Europe  till  the  seventeenth  century. 
Yet  after  all  we  need  only  recur  to  the  science  of  plants 
and  animals  as  it  was  before  Darwin  and  to  the  ideas 
which  even  now  are  dominant  in  moral  and  political 
matters  to  find  the  older  order  of  conceptions  in  full 
possession  of  the  popular  mind.  Until  the  dogma  of 
fixed  unchangeable  types  and  species,  of  arrangement 
in  classes  of  higher  and  lower,  of  subordination  of  the 
transitory  individual  to  the  universal  or  kind  had  been 
shaken  in  its  hold  upon  the  science  of  life,  it  was  im- 
possible that  the  new  ideas  and  method  should  be  made 
at  home  in  social  and  moral  life.     Does  it  not  seem  to  be 


76         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  intellectual  task  of  the  twentieth  century  to  take 
this  last  step?  When  this  step  is  taken  the  circle  of 
scientific  development  will  be  rounded  out  and  the  re- 
construction of  philosophy  be  made  an  accomplished 
fact. 


J 


CHAPTER  IV 

CHANGED  CONCEPTIONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 
AND  REASON 

What  is  experience  and  what  is  Reason,  Mind? 
What  is  the  scope  of  experience  and  what  are  its  limits? 
How  far  is  it  a  sure  ground  of  belief  and  a  safe  guide 
of  conduct?  Can  we  trust  it  in  science  and  in  be- 
havior? Or  is  it  a  quagmire  as  soon  as  we  pass 
beyond  a  few  low  material  interests?  Is  it  so  shaky, 
shifting,  and  shallow  that  "instead  of  affording  sure 
footing,  safe  paths  to  fertile  fields,  it  misleads,  betrays, 
and  engulfs?  Is  a  Reason  outside  experience  and  above 
it  needed  to  supply  assured  principles  to  science  and 
conduct?  In  one  sense,  these  questions  suggest  tech- 
nical problems  of  abstruse  philosophy ;  in  another  sense, 
they  contain  the  deepest  possible  questionings  regard- 
ing the  career  of  man.  They  concern  the  criteria  he  is 
to  employ  in  forming  his  beliefs  ;  the  principles  by  which 
he  is  to  direct  his  life  and  the  ends  to  which  he  is  to 
direct  it.  Must  man  transcend  experience  by  some 
organ  of  unique  character  that  carries  him  into  the 
super-empirical?  Failing  this,  must  he  wander  sceptical 
and  disillusioned?    Or  is  human  experience  itself  worth 

77 


78         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

while  in  its  purposes  and  its  methods  of  guidance?  Can 
it  organize  itself  into  stable  courses  or  must  it  be  sus- 
tained from  without? 

We  know  the  answers  of  traditional  philosophy. 
They  do  not  thoroughly  agree  among  themselves,  but 
they  agree  that  experience  never  rises  above  the  level  of 
the  particular,  the  contingent,  and  the  probable.  Only  _ 
a  power  transcending  in  origin  and  content  any  and  all 
conceivable  experience  can  attain  to  universal,  neces- 
sary and  certain  authority  and  direction.  The  em- 
piricists themselves  admitted  the  correctness  of  these 
assertions.  They  only  said  that  since  there  is  no  faculty 
of  Pure  Reason  in  the  possession  of  mankind,  we  must 
put  up  with  what  we  have,  experience,  and  make  the 
most  possible  out  of  it.  They  contented  themselves  with 
sceptical  attacks  upon  the  transcendentalist,  with  indi- 
cations of  the  ways  in  which  we  might  best  seize  the 
meaning  and  good  of  the  passing  moment ;  or  like  Locke, 
asserted  that  in  spite  of  the  limitation  of  experience,  it 
affords  the  light  needed  to  guide  men's  footsteps 
modestly  in  conduct.  They  affirmed  that  the  alleged  au- 
thoritative guidance  by  a  higher  faculty  had  practically 
hampered  men. 

It  is  the  function  of  this  lecture  to  show  how  and 
why  it  is  now  possible  to  make  claims  for  experience  as 
a  guide  in  science  and  moral  life  which  the  older  empiri- 
cists did  not  and  could  not  make  for  it. 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  79 

Curiously  enough,  the  key  to  the  matter  may  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  old  notion  of  experience  was  itself 
a  product  of  experience — the  only  kind  of  experience 
which  was  then  open  to  men.  If  another  conception  of 
experience  is  now  possible,  it  is  precisely  because  the 
quality  of  experience  as  it  may  now  be  lived  has  under- 
gone a  profound  social  and  intellectual  change  from 
that  of  earlier  times.  The  account  of  experience  which 
we  find  in  Plato  and  Aristotle  is  an  account  of  what 
Greek  experience  actually  was.  It  agrees  very  closely 
with  what  the  modern  psychologist  knows  as  the  method 
of  learning  by  trial  and  error  as  distinct  from  the 
method  of  learning  by  ideas.  Men  tried  certain  acts, 
they  underwent  certain  sufferings  and  affections.  Each 
of  these  in  the  time  of  its  occurrence  is  isolated,  particu- 
lar— its  counterpart  is  transient  appetite  and  transient 
sensation.  But  memory  preserves  and  accumulates 
these  separate  incidents.  As  they  pile  up,  irregular  ( 
variations  get  cancelled,  common  features  are  selected,! 
reinforced  and  combined.  Gradually  a  habit  of  action  is 
built  up,  and  corresponding  to  this  habit  there  forms  a 
certain  generalized  picture  of  an  object  or  situation. 
We  come  to  know  or  note  not  merely  this  particular 
which  as  a  particular  cannot  strictly  be  known  at  all 
(for  not  being  classed  it  cannot  be  characterized  and 
identified)  but  to  recognize  it  as  man,  tree,  stone,  leather 
— an  individual  of  a  certain  kind,  marked  by  a  certain 


80         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

^universal  form  characteristic  of  a  whole  species  of  thing. 
Along  with  the  development  of  this  common-sense 
knowledge,  there  grows  up  a  certain  regularity  of  con- 
duct. The  particular  incidents  fuse,  and  a  way  of  act- 
ing which  is  general,  as  far  as  it  goes,  builds  up.  The 
skill  develops  which  is  shown  by  the  artisan,  the  shoe- 
maker, the  carpenter,  the  gymnast,  the  physician,  who 
have  regular  ways  of  handling  cases.  This  regularity 
signifies,  of  course,  that  the  particular  case  is  not 
treated  as  an  isolated  particular,  but  as  one  of  a  kind, 
which  therefore  demands  a  kind  of  action.  From  the 
multitude  of  particular  illnesses  encountered,  the  physi- 
cian in  learning  to  class  some  of  them  as  indigestion 
learns  also  to  treat  the  cases  of  the  class  in  a  common 
or  general  way.  He  forms  the  rule  of  recommending  a 
certain  diet,  and  prescribing  a  certain  remedy.  All  this 
forms  what  we  call  experience.  It  results,  as  the  illus- 
tration shows,  in  a  certain  general  insight  and  a  certain 
organized  ability  in  action. 

But  needless  to  insist,  the  generality  and  the  organi- 
zation are  restricted  and  fallible.  They  hold,  as  Aris- 
totle was  fond  of  pointing  out,  usually,  in  most  cases, 
as  a  rule,  but  not  universally,  of  necessity,  or  as  a 
principle.  The  physician  is  bound  to  make  mistakes, 
because  individual  cases  are  bound  to  vary  unaccount- 
ably :  such  is  their  very  nature.  The  difficulty  does  not 
arise   in    a   defective    experience   which    is    capable    of 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  81 

remedy  in  some  better  experience.  Experience  itself,  as 
such,  is  defective,  and  hence  default  is  inevitable  and 
irremediable.  The  only  universality  and  certainty  is  in 
a  region  above  experience,  that  of  the  rational  and  con- 
ceptual. As  the  particular  was  a  stepping-stone  to 
image  and  habit,  so  the  latter  may  become  a  stepping- 
stone  to  conceptions  and  principles.  But  the  latter 
leave  experience  behind,  untouched ;  they  do  not  react 
to  rectify  it.  Such  is  the  notion  which  still  lingers  in 
the  contrast  of  "  empirical  "  and  "  rational "  as  when 
we  say  that  a  certain  architect  or  physician  is  empirical, 
not  scientific  in  his  procedures.  But  the  difference  be- 
tween the  classic  and  the  modern  notion  of  experience 
is  revealed  in  the  fact  that  such  a  statement  is  now  a 
charge,  a  disparaging  accusation,  brought  against  a 
particular  architect  or  physician.  With  Plato,  Aris- 
totle and  the  Scholastic,  it  was  a  charge  against  the 
callings,  since  they  were  modes  of  experience.  It  was 
an  indictment  of  all  practical  action  in  contrast  with 
conceptual  contemplation. 

The  modern  philosopher  who  has  professed  himself 
an  empiricist  has  usually  had  a  critical  purpose  in  mind. 
Like  Bacon,  Locke,  Condillac  and  Helvetius,  he  stood 
face  to  face  with  a  body  of  beliefs  and  a  set  of  institu- 
tions in  which  he  profoundly  disbelieved.  His  problem 
was  the  problem  of  attack  upon  so  much  dead  weight 
carried  uselessly  by  humanity,  crushing  and  distorting 


82         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

it.  His  readiest  way  of  undermining  and  disintegrating 
was  by  appealing  to  experience  as  a  final  test  and  cri- 
terion. In  every  case,  active  reformers  were  "  empiri- 
cists "  in  the  philosophical  sense.  They  made  it  their 
business  to  show  that  some  current  belief  or  institution 
that  claimed  the  sanction  of  innate  ideas  or  necessary 
conceptions,  or  an  origin  in  an  authoritative  revela- 
tion of  reason,  had  in  fact  proceeded  from  a  lowly  origin 
in  experience,  and  had  been  confirmed  by  accident,  by 
class  interest  or  by  biased  authority. 

The  philosophic  empiricism  initiated  by  Locke  was 
thus  disintegrative  in  intent.  It  optimistically  took  it 
for  granted  that  when  the  burden  of  blind  custom,  im- 
posed authority,  and  accidental  associations  was  re- 
moved, progress  in  science  and  social  organization  would 
spontaneously  take  place.  Its  part  was  to  help  in  re- 
moving the  burden.  The  best  way  to  liberate  men 
from  the  burden  was  through  a  natural  history  of  the 
origin  and  growth  in  the  mind  of  the  ideas  connected 
with  objectionable  beliefs  and  customs.  Santayana 
justly  calls  the  psychology  of  this  school  a  malicious 
psychology.  It  tended  to  identify  the  history  of  the 
formation  of  certain  ideas  with  an  account  of  the  things 
to  which  the  ideas  refer — an  identification  which  natu- 
rally had  an  unfavorable  effect  on  the  things.  But 
Mr.  Santayana  neglects  to  notice  the  social  zeal  and  aim 
latent  in  the  malice.     He  fails  to  point  out  that  this 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  83 

"  malice  "  was  aimed  at  institutions  and  traditions 
which  had  lost  their  usefulness ;  he  fails  to  point  out 
that  to  a  large  extent  it  was  true  of  them  that  an 
account  of  their  psychological  origin  was  equivalent  to 
a  destructive  account  of  the  things  themselves.  But 
after  Hume  with  debonair  clarity  pointed  out  that 
the  analysis  of  beliefs  into  sensations  and  associations 
left  "  natural  "  ideas  and  institutions  in  the  same  posi- 
tion in  which  the  reformers  had  placed  "  artificial  " 
ones,  the  situation  changed.  The  rationalists  employed 
the  logic  of  sensationalistic-empiricism  to  show  that  ex- 
perience, giving  only  a  heap  of  chaotic  and  isolated  par- 
ticulars, is  as  fatal  to  science  and  to  moral  laws  and 
obligations  as  to  obnoxious  institutions ;  and  concluded 
that  "  Reason  "  must  be  resorted  to  if  experience  was 
to  be  furnished  with  any  binding  and  connecting  princi- 
ples. The  new  rationalistic  idealism  of  Kant  and 
his  successors  seemed  to  be  necessitated  by  the 
totally  destructive  results  of  the  new  empirical 
philosophy. 

Two  things  have  rendered  possible  a  new  conception 
of  experience  and  a  new  conception  of  the  relation  of 
reason  to  experience,  or,  more  accurately,  of  the  place 
of  reason  in  experience.  The  primary  factor  is  the 
change  that  has  taken  place  in  the  actual  nature  of 
experience,  its  contents  and  methods,  as  it  is  actually 
lived.     The  other  is  the  development  of  a  psychology 


84         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

based  upon  biology  which  makes  possible  a  new  scien- 
tific formulation  of  the  nature  of  experience. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  technical  side — the  change  in 
psychology.  We  are  only  just  now  commencing  to  ap- 
preciate how  completely  exploded  is  the  psychology  that 
dominated  philosophy  throughout  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  According  to  this  theory,  mental 
life  originated  in  sensations  which  are  separately  and 
passively  received,  and  which  are  formed,  through  laws 
of  retention  and  association,  into  a  mosaic  of  images, 
perceptions,  and  conceptions.  The  senses  were  regarded 
as  gateways  or  avenues  of  knowledge.  Except  in  com- 
bining atomic  sensations,  the  mind  was  wholly  passive 
and  acquiescent  in  knowing.  Volition,  action,  emotion, 
and  desire  follow  in  the  wake  of  sensations  and  images. 
The  intellectual  or  cognitive  factor  comes  first  and  emo- 
tional and  volitional  life  is  only  a  consequent  conjunc- 
tion of  ideas  with  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain. 

The  effect  of  the  development  of  biology  has  been  to 
reverse  the  picture.  Wherever  there  is  life,  there  is  be- 
havior, activity.  In  order  that  life  may  persist,  this, 
activity  has  to  be  both  continuous  and  adapted  to  the 
environment.  This  adaptive  adjustment,  moreover,  is 
not  wholly  passive ;  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  the  mould- 
ing of  the  organism  by  the  environment.  Even  a  clam 
acts  upon  the  environment  and  modifies  it  to  some  ex- 
tent.   It  selects  materials  for  food  and  for  the  shell  that 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  85 

protects  it.  It  does  something  to  the  environment  as 
well  as  has  something  done  to  itself.  There  is  no  such 
thing  in  a  living  creature  as  mere  conformity  to  con- 
ditions, though  parasitic  forms  may  approach  this  limit. 
In  the  interests  of  the  maintenance  of  life  there  is  trans- 
formation of  some  elements  in  the  surrounding  medium. 
The  higher  the  form  of  life,  the  more  important  is  the 
active  reconstruction  of  the  medium.  This  increased 
control  may  be  illustrated  by  the  contrast  of  savage 
with  civilized  man.  Suppose  the  two  are  living  in  a 
wilderness.  With  the  savage  there  is  the  maximum  of 
accommodation  to  given  conditions;  the  minimum  of 
what  we  may  call  hitting  back.  The  savage  takes  things 
"  as  they  are,"  and  by  using  caves  and  roots  and  oc- 
casional pools  leads  a  meagre  and  precarious  existence. 
The  civilized  man  goes  to  distant  mountains  and  dams 
streams.  He  builds  reservoirs,  digs  channels,  and  con- 
ducts the  waters  to  what  had  been  a  desert.  He 
searches  the  world  to  find  plants  and  animals  that  will 
thrive.  He  takes  native  plants  and  by  selection  and 
cross-fertilization  improves  them.  He  introduces  ma- 
chinery to  till  the  soil  and  care  for  the  harvest.  By 
such  means  he  may  succeed  in  making  the  wilderness 
blossom  like  the  rose. 

Such  transformation  scenes  are  so  familiar  that  we 
overlook  their  meaning.  We  forget  that  the  inherent 
power  of  life  is  illustrated  in  them.    Note  what  a  change 


86         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

this  point  of  view  entails  in  the  traditional  notions  of 
experience.  Experience  becomes  an  affair  primarily  of 
doing.  The  organism  does  not  stand  about,  Micawber- 
like,  waiting  for  something  to  turn  up.  It  does  not  wait 
passive  and  inert  for  something  to  impress  itself  upon 
it  from  without.  The  organism  acts  in  accordance  with 
its  own  structure,  simple  or  complex,  upon  its  surround- 
ings. As  a  consequence  the  changes  produced  in  the 
environment  react  upon  the  organism  and  its  activities. 
The  living  creature  undergoes,  suffers,  the  consequences 
of  its  own  behavior.  This  close  connection  between 
doing  and  suffering  or  undergoing  forms  what  we  call 
experience.  Disconnected  doing  and  disconnected  suf- 
fering are  neither  of  them  experiences.  Suppose  fire 
encroaches  upon  a  man  when  he  is  asleep.  Part  of  his 
body  is  burned  away.  The  burn  does  not  perceptibly 
result  from  what  he  has  done.  There  is  nothing  which 
in  any  instructive  way  can  be  named  experience.  Or 
again  there  is  a  series  of  mere  activities,  like  twitchings 
of  muscles  in  a  spasm.  The  movements  amount  to  noth- 
ing; they  have  no  consequences  for  life.  Or,  if  they 
have,  these  consequences  are  not  connected  with  prior 
doing.  There  is  no  experience,  no  learning,  no  cumu- 
lative process.  But  suppose  a  busy  infant  puts  his 
finger  in  the  fire ;  the  doing  is  random,  aimless,  without 
intention  or  reflection.  But  something  happens  in  con- 
sequence.    The  child  undergoes  heat,  he  suffers  pain. 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  87 

The  doing  and  undergoing,  the  reaching  and  the  burn, 
are  connected.  One  comes  to  suggest  and  mean  the 
other.  Then  there  is  experience  in  a  vital  and  signifi- 
cant sense. 

Certain  important  implications  for  philosophy  follow. 
In  the  first  place,  the  interaction  of  organism  and  en- 
vironment, resulting  in  some  adaptation  which  secures 
utilization  of  the  latter,  is  the  primary  fact,  the  basic 
category.  Knowledge  is  relegated  to  a  derived  posi- 
tion, secondary  in  origin,  even  if  its  importance,  when 
once  it  is  established,  is  overshadowing.  Knowledge  is 
not  something  separate  and  self-sufficing,  but  is  in- 
volved in  the  process  by  which  life  is  sustained  and 
evolved.  The  senses  lose  their  place  as  gateways  of 
knowing  to  take  their  rightful  place  as  stimuli  to  action. 
To  an  animal  an  affection  of  the  eye  or  ear  is  not  an 
idle  piece  of  information  about  something  indifferently 
going  on  in  the  world.  It  is  an  invitation  and  induce- 
ment to  act  in  a  needed  way.  It  is  a  clue  in  behavior, 
a  directive  factor  in  adaptation  of  life  in  its  surround- 
ings. It  is  urgent  not  cognitive  in  quality.  The  whole 
controversy  between  empiricism  and  rationalism  as  to 
the  intellectual  worth  of  sensations  is  rendered  strangely 
obsolete.  The  discussion  of  sensations  belongs  under  the 
head  of  immediate  stimulus  and  response,  not  under  the 
head  of  knowledge. 

As  a  conscious  element,  a  sensation  marks  an  inter- 


88         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ruption  in  a  course  of  action  previously  entered  upon. 
Many  psychologists  since  the  time  of  Hobbes  have 
dwelt  upon  what  they  call  the  relativity  of  sensations. 
We  feel  or  sense  cold  in  transition  from  warmth  rather 
than  absolutely ;  hardness  is  sensed  upon  a  background 
of  less  resistance;  a  color  in  contrast  with  pure  light 
or  pure  dark  or  in  contrast  with  some  other  hue.  A 
continuously  unchanged  tone  or  color  cannot  be  at- 
tended to  or  sensed.  What  we  take  to  be  such  monoto- 
nously prolonged  sensations  are  in  truth  constantly  in- 
terrupted by  incursions  of  other  elements,  and  represent 
a  series  of  excursions  back  and  forth.  This  fact  was, 
however,  misconstrued  into  a  doctrine  about  the  nature 
of  knowledge.  Rationalists  used  it  to  discredit  sense  as 
a  valid  or  high  mode  of  knowing  things,  since  accord- 
ing to  it  we  never  get  hold  of  anything  in  itself  or 
intrinsically.  Sensationalists  used  it  to  disparage  all 
pretence  at  absolute  knowledge. 

Properly  speaking,  however,  this  fact  of  the  rela- 
tivity of  sensation  does  not  in  the  least  belong  in  the 
sphere  of  knowing.  Sensations  of  this  sort  are  emo- 
tional and  practical  rather  than  cognitive  and  intel- 
lectual. They  are  shocks  of  change,  due  to  interruption 
of  a  prior  adjustment.  They  are  signals  to  redirections 
of  action.  Let  me  take  a  trivial  illustration.  The 
person  who  is  taking  notes  has  no  sensation  of  the  pres- 
sure of  his  pencil  on  the  paper  or  on  his  hand  as  long 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  89 

as  it  functions  properly.  It  operates  merely  as  stimulus 
to  ready  and  effective  adjustment.  The  sensory  activity 
incites  automatically  and  unconsciously  its  proper 
motor  response.  There  is  a  preformed  physiological 
connection,  acquired  from  habit  but  ultimately  going 
back  to  an  original  connection  in  the  nervous  system. 
If  the  pencil-point  gets  broken  or  too  blunt  and  the 
habit  of  writing  does  not  operate  smoothly,  there  is  a 
conscious  shock: — the  feeling  of  something  the  matter, 
something  gone  wrong.  This  emotional  change  operates 
as  a  stimulus  to  a  needed  change  in  operation.  One 
looks  at  his  pencil,  sharpens  it  or  takes  another  pencil 
from  one's  pocket.  The  sensation  operates  as  a  pivot 
of  readjusting  behavior.  It  marks  a  break  in  the 
prior  routine  of  writing  and  the  beginning  of  some  other 
mode  of  action.  Sensations  are  "  relative  "  in  the  sense  Sr 
of  marking  transitions  in  habits  of  behavior  from  one 
course  to  another  way  of  behaving. 

The  rationalist  was  thus  right  in  denying  that  sensa- 
tions as  such  are  true  elements  of  knowledge.  But  the 
reasons  he  gave  for  this  conclusion  and  the  consequences 
he  drew  from  it  were  all  wrong.  Sensations  are  not 
parts  of  any  knowledge,  good  or  bad,  superior  or  in- 
ferior, imperfect  or  complete.  They  are  rather  provo- 
cations, incitements,  challenges  to  an  act  of  inquiry 
which  is  to  terminate  in  knowledge.  They  are  not  ways 
of  knowing  things  inferior  in  value  to  reflective  ways,  to 


90         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  ways  that  require  thought  and  inference,  because 
they  are  not  ways  of  knowing  at  all.  .They  are  stimuli 
to  reflection  and  inference.  As  interruptions,  they  raise 
the  questions:  What  does  this  shock  mean?  What  is 
happening?  What  is  the  matter?  How  is  my  relation 
to  the  environment  disturbed?  What  should  be  done 
about  it?  How  shall  I  alter  my  course  of  action  to 
meet  the  change  that  has  taken  place  in  the  surround- 
ings? How  shall  I  readjust  my  behavior  in  response? 
Sensation  is  thus,  as  the  sensationalist  claimed,  the  be- 
ginning of  knowledge,  but  only  in  the  sense  that  the 
experienced  shock  of  change  is  the  necessary  stimulus 
to  the  investigating  and  comparing  which  eventually 
produce  knowledge. 

When  experience  is  aligned  with  the  life-process  and 
sensations  are  seen  to  be  points  of  readjustment,  the 
alleged  atomism  of  sensations  totally  disappears.  With 
this  disappearance  is  abolished  the  need  for  a  synthetic 
faculty  of  super-empirical  reason  to  connect  them. 
Philosophy  is  not  any  longer  confronted  with  the  hope- 
less problem  of  finding  a  way  in  which  separate  grains 
of  sand  may  be  woven  into  a  strong  and  coherent  rope 
■ — or  into  the  illusion  and  pretence  of  one.  When  the 
isolated  and  simple  existences  of  Locke  and  Hume  are 
seen  not  to  be  truly  empirical  at  all  but  to  answer  to 
certain  demands  of  their  theory  of  mind,  the  necessity 
ceases  for  the  elaborate  Kantian  and  Post-Kantian  ma- 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  91 

chinery  of  a  'priori  concepts  and  categories  to  synthe- 
size the  alleged  stuff  of  experience.  The  true  "  stuff  \ 
of  experience  is  recognized  to  be  adaptive  courses  of 
action,  habits,  active  functions,  connections  of  doing 
and  undergoing;  sensori-motor  co-ordinations.  Experi- 
ence carries  principles  of  connection  and  organization 
within  itself.  These  principles  are  none  the  worse  be- 
cause they  are  vital  and  practical  rather  than  epistemo- 
logical.  Some  degree  of  organization  is  indispensable  to 
even  the  lowest  grade  of  life.  Even  an  amoeba  must 
have  some  continuity  in  time  in  its  activity  and  some 
adaptation  to  its  environment  in  space.  Its  life  and 
experience  cannot  possibly  consist  in  momentary, 
atomic,  and  self-enclosed  sensations.  Its  activity  has 
reference  to  its  surroundings  and  to  what  goes  before 
and  what  comes  after.  This  organization  intrinsic  to 
life  renders  unnecessary  a  super-natural  and  super-em- 
pirical synthesis.  It  affords  the  basis  and  material  for 
a  positive  evolution  of  intelligence  as  an  organizing 
factor  within  experience. 

Nor  is  it  entirely  aside  from  the  subject  to  point 
out  the  extent  in  which  social  as  well  as  biological 
organization  enters  into  the  formation  of  human  ex- 
perience. Probably  one  thing  that  strengthened  the  idea 
that  the  mind  is  passive  and  receptive  in  knowing  was 
the  observation  of  the  helplessness  of  the  human  infant. 
But  the  observation  points  in  quite  another  direction. 


92         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Because  of  his  physical  dependence  and  impotency,  the 
contacts  of  the  little  child  with  nature  are  mediated  by 
other  persons.  Mother  and  nurse,  father  and  older 
children,  determine  what  experiences  the  child  shall 
have ;  they  constantly  instruct  him  as  to  the  meaning  of 
what  he  does  and  undergoes.  The  conceptions  that  are 
socially  current  and  important  become  the  child's  prin- 
ciples of  interpretation  and  estimation  long  before  he 
attains  to  personal  and  deliberate  control  of  conduct. 
Things  come  to  him  clothed  in  language,  not  in  physical 
nakedness,  and  this  garb  of  communication  makes  him 
a  sharer  in  the  beliefs  of  those  about  him.  These  be- 
liefs coming  to  him  as  so  many  facts  form  his  mind ;  they 
furnish  the  centres  about  which  his  own  personal  expe- 
ditions and  perceptions  are  ordered.  Here  we  have 
"  categories  "  of  connection  and  unification  as  impor- 
tant as  those  of  Kant,  but  empirical  not  mythological. 
From  these  elementary,  if  somewhat  technical  con- 
siderations, we  turn  to  the  change  which  experience  it- 
self has  undergone  in  the  passage  from  ancient  and 
medieval  to  modern  life.  To  Plato,  experience  meant 
enslavement  to  the  past,  to  custom.  Experience  was 
almost  equivalent  to  established  customs  formed  not  by 
reason  or  under  intelligent  control  but  by  repetition 
and  blind  rule  of  thumb.  Only  reason  can  lift  us  above 
subjection  to  the  accidents  of  the  past.  When  we  come 
to  Bacon  and  his  successors,  we  discover  a  curious  re- 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  93 

versal.  Reason  and  its  bodyguard  of  general  notions 
is  now  the  conservative,  mind-enslaving  factor.  Ex- 
perience is  the  liberating  power.  Experience  means  the 
new,  that  which  calls  us  away  from  adherence  to  the 
past,  that  which  reveals  novel  facts  and  truths.  Faith 
in  experience  produces  not  devotion  to  custom  but  en- 
deavor for  progress.  This  difference  in  temper  is  the 
more  significant  because  it  was  so  unconsciously  taken 
for  granted.  Some  concrete  and  vital  change  must  have 
occurred  in  actual  experience  as  that  is  lived.  For, 
after  all,  the  thought  of  experience  follows  after  and 
is  modelled  upon  the  experience  actually  undergone. 
When  mathematics  and  other  rational  sciences  de- 
veloped among  the  Greeks,  scientific  truths  did  not 
react  back  into  daily  experience.  They  remained 
isolated,  apart  and  super-imposed.  Medicine  was  the 
art  in  which  perhaps  the  greatest  amount  of  posi- 
tive knowledge  was  obtained,  but  it  did  not  reach 
the  dignity  of  science.  It  remained  an  art.  In 
practical  arts,  moreover,  there  was  no  -conscious  in- 
vention or  purposeful  improvement.  Workers  fol- 
lowed patterns  that  wrere  handed  down  to  them,  while 
departure  from  established  standards  and  models 
usually  resulted  in  degenerate  productions.  Im- 
provements came  either  from  a  slow,  gradual,  and  un- 
acknowledged accumulation  of  changes  or  else  from 
some  sudden  inspiration,  which  at  once  set  a  new  stand- 


94         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ard.  Being  the  result  of  no  conscious  method,  it  was 
fittingly  attributed  to  the  gods.  In  the  social  arts, 
such  a  radical  reformer  as  Plato  felt  that  existing  evils 
were  due  to  the  absence  of  such  fixed  patterns  as  con- 
trolled the  productions  of  artisans.  The  ethical  pur- 
port of  philosophy  was  to  furnish  them,  and  when  once 
they  were  instituted,  they  were  to  be  consecrated  by 
religion,  adorned  by  art,  inculcated  by  education  and 
enforced  by  magistrates  so  that  alteration  of  them  would 
be  impossible. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat  what  has  been  so  often 
dwelt  upon  as  to  the  effect  of  experimental  science  in 
enabling  man  to  effect  a  deliberate  control  of  his  en- 
vironment. But  since  the  impact  of  this  control  upon 
the  traditional  notion  of  experience  is  often  overlooked, 
we  must  point  out  that  when  experience  ceased  to  be 
empirical  and  became  experimental,  something  of  radi- 
cal importance  occurred.  Aforetime  man  employed  the 
results  of  his  prior  experience  only  to  form  customs 
that  henceforth  had  to  be  blindly  followed  or  blindly 
broken.  Now,  old  experience  is  used  to  suggest  aims 
and  methods  for  developing  a  new  and  improved  ex- 
perience. Consequently  experience  becomes  in  so  far 
constructively  self-regulative.  What  Shakespeare  so 
pregnantly  said  of  nature,  it  is  "  made  better  by  no 
mean,  but  nature  makes  that  mean,"  becomes  true  of 
experience.    We  do  not  merely  have  to  repeat  the  past, 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  95 

or  wait  for  accidents  to  force  change  upon  us.  We  use 
our  past  experiences  to  construct  new  and  better  ones 
in  the  future.  The  very  fact  of  experience  thus  includes 
the  process  by  which  it  directs  itself  in  its  own  better- 
ment. 

Science,  "  reason  "  is  not  therefore  something  laid 
from  above  upon  experience.  Suggested  and  tested  in 
experience,  it  is  also  employed  through  inventions  in  a 
thousand  ways  to  expand  and  enrich  experience.  Al- 
though, as  has  been  so  often  repeated,  this  self-creation 
and  self-regulation  of  experience  is  still  largely  techno- 
logical rather  than  truly  artistic  or  human,  yet  what 
has  been  achieved  contains  the  guaranty  of  the  possi- 
bility of  an  intelligent  administering  of  experience.  The 
limits  are  moral  and  intellectual,  due  to  defects  in  our 
good  will  and  knowledge.  They  are  not  inherent  meta- 
physically in  the  very  nature  of  experience.  "  Reason  " 
as  a  faculty  separate  from  experience,  introducing  us  to 
a  superior  region  of  universal  truths  begins  now  to 
strike  us  as  remote,  uninteresting  and  unimportant. 
Reason,  as  a  Kantian  faculty  that  introduces  generality 
and  regularity  into  experience,  strikes  us  more  and 
more  as  superfluous — the  unnecessary  creation  of  men 
addicted  to  traditional  formalism  and  to  elaborate 
terminology.  Concrete  suggestions  arising  from  past 
experiences,  developed  and  matured  in  the  light  of  the 
needs  and  deficiencies  of  the  present,  employed  as  aims 


96         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  methods  of  specific  reconstruction,  and  tested  by 
success  or  failure  in  accomplishing  this  task  of  re- 
adjustment, suffice.  To  such  empirical  suggestions  used 
in  constructive  fashion  for  new  ends  the  name  intelli- 
gence is  given. 

This  recognition  of  the  place  of  active  and  planning 
thought  within  the  very  processes  of  experience  radi- 
cally alters  the  traditional  status  of  the  technical  prob- 
lems of  particular  and  universal,  sense  and  reason,  per- 
ceptual and  conceptual.  But  the  alteration  is  of  much 
more  than  technical  significance.  For  reason  is  experi-  ^ 
mental  intelligence,  conceived  after  the  pattern  of 
science,  and  used  in  the  creation  of  social  arts ;  it  has 
something  to  do.  It  liberates  man  from  the  bondage  of 
the  past,  due  to  ignorance  and  accident  hardened  into 
custom.  It  projects  a  better  future  and  assists  man  in 
its  realization.  And  its  operation  is  always  subject  to 
test  in  experience.  The  plans  which  are  formed,  the 
principles  which  man  projects  as  guides  of  reconstruc- 
tive action,  are  not  dogmas.  They  are  hypotheses  to 
be  worked  out  in  practice,  and  to  be  rejected,  corrected 
and  expanded  as  they  fail  or  succeed  in  giving  our 
present  experience  the  guidance  it  requires.  We  may 
call  them  programmes  of  action,  but  since  they  are  to  be 
used  in  making  our  future  acts  less  blind,  more  directed, 
they  are  flexible.  Intelligence  is  not  something  pos- 
sessed once  for  all.     It  is  in  constant  process  of  form- 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  97 

ing,  and  its  retention  requires  constant  alertness  in 
observing  consequences,  an  open-minded  will  to  learn 
and  courage  in  re-adjustment. 

In  contrast  with  this  experimental  and  re-adjusting 
intelligence,  it  must  be  said  that  Reason  as  employed  by 
historic  rationalism  has  tended  to  carelessness,  conceit, 
irresponsibility,  and  rigidity — in  short  absolutism.  A 
certain  school  of  contemporary  psychology  uses  the 
term  "  rationalization  "  to  denote  those  mental  mechan- 
isms by  which  we  unconsciously  put  a  better  face  on  our 
conduct  or  experience  than  facts  justify.  We  excuse 
ourselves  to  ourselves  by  introducing  a  purpose  and 
order  into  that  of  which  we  are  secretly  ashamed.  In 
like  fashion,  historic  rationalism  has  often  tended  to 
use  Reason  as  an  agency  of  justification  and  apologet- 
ics. It  has  taught  that  the  defects  and  evils  of  actual 
experience  disappear  in  the  "  rational  whole  "  of  things  ; 
that  things  appear  evil  merely  because  of  the  partial, 
incomplete  nature  of  experience.  Or,  as  was  noted  by 
Bacon,  "  reason  "  assumes  a  false  simplicity,  uniform- 
ity and  universality,  and  opens  for  science  a  path  of 
fictitious  ease.  This  course  results  in  intellectual  irre- 
sponsibility and  neglect: — irresponsibility  because  ra- 
tionalism assumes  that  the  concepts  of  reason  are  so 
self-sufficient  and  so  far  above  experience  that  they 
need  and  can  secure  no  confirmation  in  experience.  Neg- 
lect, because  this   same   assumption  makes   men   care- 


98         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

less  about  concrete  observations  and  experiments.  Con- 
tempt for  experience  has  had  a  tragic  revenge  in  ex- 
perience ;  it  has  cultivated  disregard  for  fact  and  this 
disregard  has  been  paid  for  in  failure,  sorrow  and  war. 

The  dogmatic  rigidity  of  Rationalism  is  best  seen  in 
the  consequences  of  Kant's  attempt  to  buttress  an  other- 
wise chaotic  experience  with  pure  concepts.  He  set 
out  with  a  laudable  attempt  at  restricting  the  extrava- 
gant pretensions  of  Reason  apart  from  experience.  He 
called  his  philosophy  critical.  But  because  he  taught 
that  the  understanding  employs  fixed,  a  priori,  concepts, 
in  order  to  introduce  connection  into  experience  and 
thereby  make  known  objects  possible  (stable,  regular 
relationships  of  qualities),  he  developed  in  German 
thought  a  curious  contempt  for  the  living  variety  of 
experience  and  a  curious  overestimate  of  the  value  of 
system,  order,  regularity  for  their  own  sakes.  More 
practical  causes  were  at  work  in  producing  the 
peculiarly  German  regard  for  drill,  discipline,  "  order  " 
and  docility. 

But  Kant's  philosophy  served  to  provide  an  intel- 
lectual justification  or  "  rationalization "  of  subordi- 
nation of  individuals  to  fixed  and  ready-made  uni- 
versal, "  principles,"  laws.  Reason  and  law  were  held 
to  be  synonyms.  And  as  reason  came  into  experi- 
ence from  without  and  above,  so  law  had  to  come  into 
life  from  some  external  and  superior  authority.     The 


EXPERIENCE  AND  REASON  99 

practical  correlate  to  absolutism  is  rigidity,  stiffness, 
inflexibility  of  disposition.  When  Kant  taught  that 
some  conceptions,  and  these  the  important  ones,  are  a 
priori,  that  they  do  not  arise  in  experience  and  cannot 
be  verified  or  tested  in  experience,  that  without  such 
ready-made  injections  into  experience  the  latter  is 
anarchic  and  chaotic,  he  fostered  the  spirit  of 
absolutism,  even  though  technically  he  denied  the  possi- 
bility of  absolutes.  His  successors  were  true  to  his  spirit 
rather  than  his  letter,  and  so  they  taught  absolutism 
systematically.  That  the  Germans  with  all  their  scien- 
tific competency  and  technological  proficiency  should 
have  fallen  into  their  tragically  rigid  and  "  superior  " 
style  of  thought  and  action  (tragic  because  involving 
them  in  inability  to  understand  the  world  in  which  they 
lived)  is  a  sufficient  lesson  of  what  may  be  involved  in  a 
systematical  denial  of  the  experimental  character  of 
intelligence  and  its  conceptions. 

By  common  consent,  the  effect  of  English  empiricism 
was  sceptical  where  that  of  German  rationalism  was 
apologetic ;  it  undermined  where  the  latter  justified.  It 
detected  accidental  associations  formed  into  customs 
under  the  influence  of  self-  or  class-interest  where 
German  rational-idealism  discovered  profound  meanings 
due  to  the  necessary  evolution  of  absolute  reason.  The 
modern  world  has  suffered  because  in  so  many  matters 
philosophy  has  offered  it  only  an  arbitrary  choice  be- 


100       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

tween  hard  and  fast  opposities :  Disintegrating  analysis 
or  rigid  synthesis ;  complete  radicalism  neglecting  and 
attacking  the  historic  past  as  trivial  and  harmful,  or 
complete  conservatism  ide^izijag,institntions-^es--embQdi- 
^ments  of  eternal  reason ;  a  resolution  of  experience  into 
atomic  elements  that  afford  no  support  to  stable  or- 
ganization or  a  clamping  down  of  all  experience  by 
fixed  categories  and  necessary  concepts — these  are 
the  alternatives  that  conflicting  schools  have  pre- 
sented. 

They  are  the  logical  consequences  of  the  traditional 
opposition  of  Sense  and  Thought,  Experience  and 
Reason.  Common  sense  has  refused  to  follow  both 
theories  to  their  ultimate  logic,  and  has  fallen  back  on 
faith,  intuition  or  the  exigencies  of  practical  com- 
promise. But  common  sense  too  often  has  been  con- 
fused and  hampered  instead  of  enlightened  and  directed 
by  the  philosophies  proffered  it  by  professional  in- 
tellectuals. Men  who  are  thrown  back  upon  "  common 
sense  "  when  they  appeal  to  philosophy  for  some  general 
guidance  are  likely  to  fall  back  on  routine,  the  force  of 
some  personality,  strong  leadership  or  on  the  pressure 
of  momentary  circumstances.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
estimate  the  harm  that  has  resulted  because  the  liberal 
and  progressive  movement  of  the  eighteenth  and  earlier 
nineteenth  centuries  had  no  method  of  intellectual  articu- 
lation commensurate  with  its  practical  aspirations.    Its 


EXPERIENXE  AND  REASON  b$i 

heart  was  in  the  right  place.  It  was  humane  and  social 
in  intention.  But  it  had  no  theoretical  instrumentali- 
ties of  constructive  power.  Its  head  was  sadly  deficient. 
Too  often  the  logical  import  of  its  professed  doctrines 
was  almost  anti-social  in  their  atomistic  individualism, 
anti-human  in  devotion  to  brute  sensation.  This  de- 
ficiency played  into  the  hands  of  the  reactionary  and 
obscurantist.  The  strong  point  of  the  appeal  to  fixed 
principles  transcending  experience,  to  dogmas  incapable 
of  experimental  verification,  the  strong  point  of  reliance 
upon  a  priori  canons  of  truth  and  standards  of  morals 
in  opposition  to  dependence  upon  fruits  and  conse- 
quences in  experience,  has  been  the  unimaginative  con- 
ception of  experience  which  professed  philosophic 
empiricists  have  entertained  and  taught. 

A  philosophic  reconstruction  which  should  relieve  men 
of  having  to  choose  between  an  impoverished  and  trun- 
cated experience  on  one  hand  and  an  artificial  and  im- 
potent reason  on  the  other  would  relieve  human  effort 
from  the  heaviest  intellectual  burden  it  has  to  carry. 
It  would  destroy  the  division  of  men  of  good  will  into 
two  hostile  camps.  It  would  permit  the  co-operation 
of  those  who  respect  the  past  and  the  institutionally 
established  with  those  who  are  interested  in  establishing 
a  freer  and  happier  future.  For  it  would  determine 
the  conditions  under  which  the  funded  experience  of  the 
past  and  the  contriving  intelligence  which  looks  to  the 


C  ( 

'  ■  . '  '    ' 


i(»2.      RECONS/TIUJCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

future  can  effectually  interact  with  each  other.  It 
would  enable  men  to  glorify  the  claims  of  reason  without 
at  the  same  time  falling  into  a  paralyzing  worship  of 
super-empirical  authority  or  into  an  offensive  "  ration- 
alization "  of  things  as  they  are. 


CHAPTER  V 

CHANGED  CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND 

THE  REAL 

It  has  been  noted  that  human  experience  is  made 
human  through  the  existence  of  associations  and  recol- 
lections,  which  are  strained  through  the  mesh  of  imagi- 
nation so  as  to  suit  the  demands  of  the  emotions.  A 
life  that  is  humanly  interesting  is,  short  of  the  results 
of  discipline,  a  life  in  which  the  tedium  of  vacant  leisure 
is  filled  with  images  that  excite  and  satisfy.  It  is  in 
this  sense  that  poetry  preceded  prose  in  human  experi- 
ence, religion  antedated  science,  and  ornamental  and 
decorative  art  while  it  could  not  take  the  place  of  utility 
early  reached  a  development  out  of  proportion  to  the 
practical  arts.  In  order  to  give  contentment  and  de- 
light, in  order  to  feed  present  emotion  and  give  the 
stream  of  conscious  life  intensity  and  color,  the  sug- 
gestions which  spring  from  past  experiences  are  worked 
over  so  as  to  smooth  out  their  unpleasantnesses  and  en- 
hance their  enjoyableness.  Some  psychologists  claim 
that  there  is  what  they  call  a  natural  tendency  to 
obliviscence  of  the  disagreeable — that  men  turn  from 
the  unpleasant  in  thought  and  recollection  as  they  do 

103 


104       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

from  the  obnoxious  in  action.  Every  serious-minded 
person  knows  that  a  large  part  of  the  effort  required  in 
moral  discipline  consists  in  the  courage  needed  to 
acknowledge  the  unpleasant  consequences  of  one's  past 
and  present  acts.  We  squirm,  dodge,  evade,  disguise, 
cover  up,  find  excuses  and  palliations — anything  to 
render  the  mental  scene  less  uncongenial.  In  short,  the 
tendency  of  spontaneous  suggestion  is  to  idealize  ex- 
perience, to  give  it  in  consciousness  qualities  which  it 
does  not  have  in  actuality.  Time  and  memory  are  true 
artists ;  they  remould  reality  nearer  to  the  heart's 
desire. 

As  imagination  becomes  freer  and  less  controlled  by 
concrete  actualities,  the  idealizing  tendency  takes  fur- 
ther flights  unrestrained  by  the  rein  of  the  prosaic 
world.  The  things  most  emphasized  in  imagination  as 
it  reshapes  experience  are  things  which  are  absent  in 
reality.  In  the  degree  in  which  life  is  placid  and  easy, 
imagination  is  sluggish  and  bovine.  In  the  degree  in 
which  life  is  uneasy  and  troubled,  fancy  is  stirred  to 
frame  pictures  of  a  contrary  state  of  things.  By 
reading  the  characteristic  features  of  any  man's  castles 
in  the  air  you  can  make  a  shrewd  guess  as  to  his  under- 
lying desires  which  are  frustrated.  What  is  difficulty 
and  disappointment  in  real  life  becomes  conspicuous 
achievement  and  triumph  in  revery;  what  is  negative  in 
fact  will  be  positive  in  the  image  drawn  by  fancy ;  what 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  105 

is  vexation  in  conduct  will  be  compensated  for  in  high 
relief  in  idealizing  imagination. 

These  considerations  apply  beyond  mere  personal 
psychology.  They  are  decisive  for  one  of  the  most 
marked  traits  of  classic  philosophy: — its  conception  of 
an  ultimate  supreme  Reality  which  is  essentially  ideal 
in  nature.  Historians  have  more  than  once  drawn  an 
instructive  parallel  between  the  developed  Olympian 
Pantheon  of  Greek  religion  and  the  Ideal  Realm  of 
Platonic  philosophy.  The  gods,  whatever  their  origin 
and  original  traits,  became  idealized  projections  of  the 
selected  and  matured  achievements  which  the  Greeks 
admired  among  their  mortal  selves.  The  gods  were 
like  mortals,  but  mortals  living  only  the  lives  which 
men  would  wish  to  live,  with  power  intensified,  beauty 
perfected,  and  wisdom  ripened.  When  Aristotle  criti- 
cized the  theory  of  Ideas  of  his  master,  Plato,  by  saying 
that  the  Ideas  were  after  all  only  things  of  sense  eternal- 
ized, he  pointed  out  in  effect  the  parallelism  of  philoso- 
phy with  religion  and  art  to  which  allusion  has  just 
been  made.  And  save  for  matters  of  merely  technical 
import,  is  it  not  possible  to  say  of  Aristotle's  Forms 
just  what  he  said  of  Plato's  Ideas?  What  are  they, 
these  Forms  and  Essences'  which  so  profoundly  influ- 
enced for  centuries  the  course  of  science  and  theology, 
save  the  objects  of  ordinary  experience  with  their  blem- 
ishes removed,  their  imperfections  eliminated,  their  lacks 


106       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

rounded  out,  their  suggestions  and  hints  fulfilled? 
What  are  they  in  short  but  the  objects  of  familiar  life 
divinized  because  reshaped  by  the  idealizing  imagina- 
tion to  meet  the  demands  of  desire  in  just  those  respects 
in  which  actual  experience  is  disappointing? 

That  Plato,  and  Aristotle  in  somewhat  different 
fashion,  and  Plotinus  and  Marcus  Aurelius  and  Saint 
Thomas  Aquinas,  and  Spinoza  and  Hegel  all  taught 
that  Ultimate  Reality  is  either  perfectly  Ideal  and 
Rational  in  nature,  or  else  has  absolute  ideality  and 
rationality  as  its  necessary  attribute,  are  facts  well 
known  to  the  student  of  philosophy.  They  need  no  ex- 
position here.  But  it  is  worth  pointing  out  that  these 
great  systematic  philosophies  defined  perfect  Ideality 
in  conceptions  that  express  the  opposite  of  those  things 
which  make  life  unsatisfactory  and  troublesome.  What 
is  the  chief  source  of  the  complaint  of  poet  and  moralist 
with  the  goods,  the  values  and  satisfactions  of  experi- 
ence? Rarely  is  the  complaint  that  such  things  do  not 
exist;  it  is  that  although  existing  they  are  momentary, 
transient,  fleeting.  The}'  do  not  stay ;  at  worst  they 
come  only  to  annoy  and  tease  with  their  hurried  and  dis- 
appearing taste  of  what  might  be;  at  best  they  come 
only  to  inspire  and  instruct  with  a  passing  hint  of  truer 
reality.  This  commonplace  of  the  poet  and  moralist 
as  to  the  impermanence  not  only  of  sensuous  enjoy- 
ment, but  of  fame  and  civic  achievements  was  profoundly 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  107 

reflected  upon  by  philosophers,  especially  by  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  The  results  of  their  thinking  have  been 
wrought  into  the  very  fabric  of  western  ideas.  Time, 
change,  movement  are  signs  that  what  the  Greeks  called 
Non-Being  somehow  infect  true  Being.  The  phrase- 
ology is  now  strange,  but  many  a  modern  who  ridicules 
the  conception  of  Non-Being  repeats  the  same  thought 
under  the  name  of  the  Finite  or  Imperfect. 

Wherever  there  is  change,  there  is  instability,  and  in- 
stability is  proof  of  something  the  matter,  of  absence, 
deficiency,  incompleteness.  These  are  the  ideas  com- 
mon to  the  connection  between  change,  becoming  and 
perishing,  and  Non-Being,  finitude  and  imperfection. 
Hence  complete  and  true  Reality  must  be  changeless, 
unalterable,  so  full  of  Being  that  it  always  and  for- 
ever maintains  itself  in  fixed  rest  and  repose.  As 
Bradley,  the  most  dialectially  ingenious  Absolutist  of 
our  own  day,  expresses  the  doctrine  "  Nothing  that  is 
perfectly  real  moves."  And  while  Plato  took,  compara- 
tively speaking,  a  pessimistic  view  of  change  as  mere 
lapse  and  Aristotle  a  complacent  view  of  it  as  tendency 
to  realization,  yet  Aristotle  doubted  no  more  than  Plato 
that  the  fully  realized  reality,  the  divine  and  ultimate,  is 
changeless.  Though  it  is  called  Activity  or  Energy,  the 
Activity  knew  no  change,  the  energy  did  nothing.  It 
was  the  activity  of  an  army  forever  marking  time  and 
never  going  anywhere. 


108        RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

From  this  contrast  of  the  permanent  with  the  tran- 
sient arise  other  features  which  mark  off  the  Ultimate 
Reality  from  the  imperfect  realities  of  practical  life. 
Where  there  is  change,  there  is  of  necessity  numerical 
plurality,  multiplicity,  and  from  variety  comes  opposi- 
tion, strife.  Change  is  alteration,  or  "  othering  "  and 
this  means  diversity.  Diversity  means  division,  and 
division  means  two  sides  and  their  conflict.  The  world 
which  is  transient  must  be  a  world  of  discord,  for  in 
lacking  stability  it  lacks  the  government  of  unity.  Did 
unity  completely  rule,  these  would  remain  an  unchang- 
ing totality.  What  alters  has  parts  and  partialities 
which,  not  recognizing  the  rule  of  unity,  assert  them- 
selves independently  and  make  life  a  scene  of  contention 
and  discord.  Ultimate  and  true  Being  on  the  other 
hand,  since  it  is  changeless  is  Total,  All-Comprehensive 
and  One.  Since  it  is  One,  it  knows  only  harmony,  and 
therefore  enjoys  complete  and  eternal  Good.  It  is 
Perfection. 

Degrees  of  knowledge  and  truth  correspond  with  de- 
grees of  reality  point  by  point.  The  higher  and  more 
complete  the  Reality  the  truer  and  more  important  the 
knowledge  that  refers  to  it.  Since  the  world  of  be- 
coming, of  origins  and  perishings,  is  deficient  in  true 
Being,  it  cannot  be  known  in  the  best  sense.  To  know  it 
means  to  neglect  its  flux  and  alteration  and  discover 
some  permanent  form  which  limits  the  processes  that 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  109 

alter  in  time.  The  acorn  undergoes  a  series  of  changes ; 
these  are  knowable  only  in  reference  to  the  fixed  form 
of  the  oak  which  is  the  same  in  the  entire  oak  species  in 
spite  of  the  numerical  diversity  of  trees.  Moreover,  this 
form  limits  the  flux  of  growth  at  both  ends,  the  acorn 
coming  from  the  oak  as  well  as  passing  into  it.  Where 
such  unifying  and  limiting  eternal  forms  cannot  be  de- 
tected, there  is  mere  aimless  variation  and  fluctuation, 
and  knowledge  is  out  of  the  question.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  objects  are  approached  in  which  there  is  no 
movement  at  all,  knowledge  becomes  really  demonstra- 
tive, certain,  perfect — truth  pure  and  unallo3Ted.  The 
heavens  can  be  more  trulv  known  than  the  earth,  God 
the  unmoved  mover  than  the  heavens. 

From  this  fact  follows  the  superiority  of  contempla- 
tive to  practical  knowledge,  of  pure  theoretical  specula- 
tion to  experimentation,  and  to  any  kind  of  knowing 
that  depends  upon  changes  in  things  or  that  induces 
change  in  them.  Pure  knowing  is  pure  beholding,  view- 
ing, noting.  It  is  complete  in  itself.  It  looks  for 
nothing  beyond  itself ;  it  lacks  nothing  and  hence  has  no 
aim  or  purpose.  It  is  most  emphatically  its  own  excuse 
for  being.  Indeed,  pure  contemplative  knowing  is  so 
much  the  most  truly  self-enclosed  and  self-sufficient 
thing  in  the  universe  that  it  is  the  highest  and  indeed 
the  only  attribute  that  can  be  ascribed  to  God,  the 
Highest  Being  in  the  scale  of  Being.     Man  himself  is 


110       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

divine  in  the  rare  moments  when  he  attains  to  purely 
self-sufficient  theoretical  insight. 

In  contrast  with  such  knowing,  the  so-called  knowing 
of  the  artisan  is  base.  He  has  to  bring  about  changes 
in  things,  in  wood  and  stone,  and  this  fact  is  of  itself 
evidence  that  his  material  is  deficient  in  Being.  What 
condemns  his  knowledge  even  more  is  the  fact  that  it  is 
not  disinterestedly  for  its  own  sake.  It  has  reference  to 
results  to  be  attained,  food,  clothing,  shelter,  etc.  It 
is  concerned  with  things  that  perish,  the  body  and  its 
needs.  It  thus  has  an  ulterior  aim,  and  one  which  itself 
testifies  to  imperfection.  For  want,  desire,  affection  of 
every  sort,  indicate  lack.  Where  there  is  need  and 
desire — as  in  the  case  of  all  practical  knowledge  and 
activity — there  is  incompleteness  and  insufficiency. 
While  civic  or  political  and  moral  knowledge  rank 
higher  than  do  the  conceptions  of  the  artisan,  yet  in- 
trinsically considered  they  are  a  low  and  untrue  type. 
Moral  and  political  action  is  practical;  that  is,  it  im- 
plies needs  and  effort  to  satisfy  them.  It  has  an  end 
beyond  itself.  Moreover,  the  very  fact  of  association 
shows  lack  of  self-sufficiency ;  it  shows  dependence  upon 
others.  Pure  knowing  is  alone  solitary,  and  capable  of 
being  carried  on  in  complete,  self-sufficing  independence. 

In  short,  the  measure  of  the  worth  of  knowledge  ac- 
cording to  Aristotle,  whose  views  are  here  summarized, 
is  the  degree  in  which  it  is  purely  contemplative.     The 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  111 

highest  degree  is  attained  in  knowing  ultimate  Ideal 
Being,  pure  Mind.  This  is  Ideal,  the  Form  of  Forms, 
because  it  has  no  lacks,  no  needs,  and  experiences  no 
change  or  variety.  It  has  no  desires  because  in  it  all 
desires  are  consummated.  Since  it  is  perfect  Being,  it 
is  perfect  Mind  and  perfect  Bliss ; — the  acme  of  ration- 
ality and  ideality.  One  point  more  and  the  argument 
is  completed.  The  kind  of  knowing  that  concerns  itself 
with  this  ultimate  reality  (which  is  also  ultimate 
ideality)  is  philosophy.  Philosophy  is  therefore  the  last 
and  highest  term  in  pure  contemplation.  Whatever 
may  be  said  for  any  other  kind  of  knowledge,  philos- 
ophy is  self-enclosed.  It  has  nothing  to  do  beyond 
itself;  it  has  no  aim  or  purpose  or  function — except  to 
be  philosophy — that  is,  pure,  self-sufficing  beholding  of 
ultimate  reality.  There  is  of  course  such  a  thing  as 
philosophic  study  which  falls  short  of  this  perfection. 
Where  there  is  learning,  there  is  change  and  becoming. 
But  the  function  of  study  and  learning  of  philosophy  is, 
as  Plato  put  it,  to  convert  the  eye  of  the  soul  from 
dwelling  contentedly  upon  the  images  of  things,  upon 
the  inferior  realities  that  are  born  and  that  decay, 
and  to  lead  it  to  the  intuition  of  supernal  and  eternal 
Being.  Thus  the  mind  of  the  knower  is  transformed. 
It  becomes  assimilated  to  what  it  knows. 

Through    a    variety    of    channels,    especially    Neo- 
Platonism  and  St.  Augustine,  these  ideas  found  their 


112       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

way  into  Christian  theology;  and  great  scholastic 
thinkers  taught  that  the  end  of  man  is  to  know  True 
Being,  that  knowledge  is  contemplative,  that  True  Being 
is  pure  Immaterial  Mind,  and  to  know  it  is  Bliss  and 
Salvation.  While  this  knowledge  cannot  be  achieved 
in  this  stage  of  life  nor  without  supernatural  aid,  yet  so 
far  as  it  is  accomplished  it  assimilates  the  human  mind 
to  the  divine  essence  and  so  constitutes  salvation. 
Through  this  taking  over  of  the  conception  of  knowl- 
edge as  Contemplative  into  the  dominant  religion  of 
Europe,  multitudes  were  affected  who  were  totally  inno- 
cent of  theoretical  philosophy.  There  was  bequeathed 
to  generations  of  thinkers  as  an  unquestioned  axiom  the 
idea  that  knowledge  is  intrinsically  a  mere  beholding 
or  viewing  of  reality — the  spectator  conception  of 
knowledge.  So  deeply  engrained  was  this  idea  that  it 
prevailed  for  centuries  after  the  actual  progress  of 
science  had  demonstrated  that  knowledge  is  power  to 
transform  the  world,  and  centuries  after  the  practice 
of  effective  knowledge  had  adopted  the  method  of 
experimentation. 
^  Let  us  turn  abruptly  from  this  conception  of  the 
measure  of  true  knowledge  and  the  nature  of  true  philos- 
ophy to  the  existing  practice  of  knowledge.  Nowa- 
days if  a  man,  say  a  physicist  or  chemist,  wants  to 
know  something,  the  last  thing  he  does  is  merely  to  con- 
template.    He  does  not  look  in  however  earnest  and 


/ 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  113 

prolonged  way  upon  the  object  expecting  that  thereby 
he  will  detect  its  fixed  and  characteristic  form.  He  does 
not  expect  any  amount  of  such  aloof  scrutiny  to  reveal 
to  him  any  secrets.  He  proceeds  to  do  something,  to 
bring  some  energy  to  bear  upon  the  substance  to  see 
how  it  reacts;  he  places  it  under  unusual  conditions  in 
order  to  induce  some  change.  While  the  astronomer 
cannot  change  the  remote  stars,  even  he  no  longer  merely 
gazes.  If  he  cannot  change  the  stars  themselves,  he  can 
at  least  by  lens  and  prism  change  their  light  as  it 
reaches  the  earth ;  he  can  lay  traps  for  discovering 
changes  which  would  otherwise  escape  notice.  Instead 
of  taking  an  antagonistic  attitude  toward  change  and 
denying  it  to  the  stars  because  of  their  divinity  and 
perfection,  he  is  on  constant  and  alert  watch  to  find 
some  change  through  which  he  can  form  an  inference 
as  to  the  formation  of  stars  and  systems  of  stars. 

Change  in  short  is  no  longer  looked  upon  as  a  fall 
from  grace,  as  a  lapse  from  reality  or  a  sign  of  im- 
perfection of  Being.  Modern  science  no  longer  tries 
to  find  some  fixed  form  or  essence  behind  each  process 
of  change.  Rather,  the  experimental  method  tries  to 
break  down  apparent  fixities  and  to  induce  changes. 
The  form  that  remains  unchanged  to  sense,  the  form  of 
seed  or  tree,  is  regarded  not  as  the  key  to  knowledge 
of  the  thing,  but  as  a  wall,  an  obstruction  to  be  broken 
down.    Consequently  the  scientific  man  experiments  with 


114       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

this  and  that  agency  applied  to  this  and  that  condition 
until  something  begins  to  happen ;  until  there  is,  as  we 
say,  something  doing.  He  assumes  that  there  is  change 
going  on  all  the  time,  that  there  is  movement  within 
each  thing  in  seeming  repose ;  and  that  since  the  process 
is  veiled  from  perception  the  way  to  know  it  is  to  bring 
the  thing  into  novel  circumstances  until  change  becomes 
evident.  In  short,  the  thing  which  is  to  be  accepted  and 
paid  heed  to  is  not  what  is  originally  given  but  that 
which  emerges  after  the  thing  has  been  set  under  a 
great  variety  of  circumstances  in  order  to  see  how  it 
behaves. 

Now  this  marks  a  much  more  general  change  in  the 
human  attitude  than  perhaps  appears  at  first  sight. 
It  signifies  nothing  less  than  that  the  world  or  any 
part  of  it  as  it  presents  itself  at  a  given  time  is  accepted 
or  acquiesced  in  only  as  material  for  change.  It  is 
accepted  precisely  as  the  carpenter,  say,  accepts  things 
as  he  finds  them.  If  he  took  them  as  things  to  be 
observed  and  noted  for  their  own  sake,  he  never  would 
be  a  carpenter.  He  would  observe,  describe,  record  tliQ 
structures,  forms  and  changes  which  things  exhibit  to 
him,  and  leave  the  matter  there.  If  perchance  some  of 
the  changes  going  on  should  present  him  with  a  shelter, 
so  much  the  better.  But  what  makes  the  carpenter  a 
builder  is  the  fact  that  he  notes  things  not  just  as 
objects  in  themselves,  but  with  reference  to  what  he 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  115 

wants  to  do  to  them  and  with  them;  to  the  end  he 
has  in  mind.  Fitness  to  effect  certain  special  changes 
that  he  wishes  to  see  accomplished  is  what  concerns 
him  in  the  wood  and  stones  and  iron  which  he  observes. 
His  attention  is  directed  to  the  changes  they  undergo 
and  the  changes  they  make  other  things  undergo  so  that 
he  may  select  that  combination  of  changes  which  will 
yield  him  his  desired  result.  It  is  only  by  these  processes 
of  active  manipulation  of  things  in  order  to  realize  his 
purpose  that  he  discovers  what  the  properties  of  things 
are.  If  he  foregoes  his  own  purpose  and  in  the  name 
of  a  meek  and  humble  subscription  to  things  as  they 
"  really  are "  refuses  to  bend  things  as  they  "  are  " 
to  his  own  purpose,  he  not  only  never  achieves  his  pur- 
pose but  he  never  learns  what  the  things  themselves  are. 
They  are  what  they  can  do  and  what  can  be  done  with 
them, — things  that  can  be  found  by  deliberate  trying. 

The  outcome  of  this  idea  of  the  right  way  to  know 
is  a  profound  modification  in  man's  attitude  toward  the 
natural  world.  Under  differing  social  conditions,  the 
older  or  classic  conception  sometimes  bred  resignation 
and  submission ;  sometimes  contempt  and  desire  to 
escape ;  sometimes,  notably  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks, 
a  keen  esthetic  curiosity  which  showed  itself  in  acute 
noting  of  all  the  traits  of  given  objects.  In  fact,  the 
whole  conception  of  knowledge  as  beholding  and  noting 
is  fundamentally  an  idea  connected  with  esthetic  enjoy- 


116       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

merit  and  appreciation  where  the  environment  is  beauti- 
ful and  life  is  serene,  and  with  esthetic  repulsion  and 
depreciation  where  life  is  troubled,  nature  morose  and 
hard.  But  in  the  degree  in  which  the  active  conception 
of  knowledge  prevails,  and  the  environment  is  regarded 
as  something  that  has  to  be  changed  in  order  to  be  truly 
known,  men  are  imbued  with  courage,  with  what  may 
almost  be  termed  an  aggressive  attitude  toward  na- 
ture. The  latter  becomes  plastic,  something  to  be  sub- 
jected to  human  uses.  The  moral  disposition  toward 
change  is  deeply  modified.  This  loses  its  pathos,  it 
ceases  to  be  haunted  with  melancholy  through  suggest- 
ing only  decay  and  loss.  Change  becomes  significant 
of  new  possibilities  and  ends  to  be  attained ;  it  becomes 
prophetic  of  a  better  future.  Change  is  associated  with 
progress  rather  than  with  lapse  and  fall.  Since  changes 
are  going  on  anyway,  the  great  thing  is  to  learn  enough 
about  them  so  that  we  be  able  to  lay  hold  of  them  and 
turn  them  in  the  direction  of  our  desires.  Conditions 
and  events  are  neither  to  be  fled  from  nor  passively 
acquiesced  in ;  they  are  to  be  utilized  and  directed.  They 
are  either  obstacles  to  our  ends  or  else  means  for  their 
accomplishment.  In  a  profound  sense  knowing  ceases 
to  be  contemplative  and  becomes  practical. 

Unfortunately  men,  educated  men,  cultivated  men  in 
particular,  are  still  so  dominated  by  the  older  concep- 
tion of  an  aloof  and  self-sufficing  reason  and  knowledge 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  117 

that  they  refuse  to  perceive  the  import  of  this  doctrine. 
They  think  they  are  sustaining  the  cause  of  impartial, 
thorough-going  and  disinterested  reflection  when  they 
maintain  the  traditional  philosophy  of  intellectualism — 
that  is,  of  knowing  as  something  self-sufficing  and  self- 
enclosed.  But  in  truth,  historic  intellectualism,  the 
spectator  view  of  knowledge,  is  a  purely  compensatory 
doctrine  which  men  of  an  intellectual  turn  have  built 
up  to  console  themselves  for  the  actual  and  social  im- 
potency  of  the  calling  of  thought  to  which  they  are 
devoted.  Forbidden  by  conditions  and  held  back  by 
lack  of  courage  from  making  their  knowledge  a  factor 
in  the  determination  of  the  course  of  events,  they  have 
sought  a  refuge  of  complacency  in  the  notion  that  know- 
ing is  something  too  sublime  to  be  contaminated  by  con- 
tact with  things  of  change  and  practice.  They  have 
transformed  knowing  into  a  morally  irresponsible 
estheticism.  The  true  import  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
operative  or  practical  character  of  knowing,  of  intelli- 
gence, is  objective.  It  means  that  the  structures  and 
objects  which  science  and  philosophy  set  up  in  contrast 
to  the  things  and  events  of  concrete  daily  experience 
do  not  constitute  a  realm  apart  in  which  rational  con- 
templation may  rest  satisfied ;  it  means  that  they  repre- 
sent the  selected  obstacles,  material  means  and  ideal 
methods  of  giving  direction  to  that  change  which  is 
bound  to  occur  anyway. 


118       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

This  change  of  human  disposition  toward  the  world 
does  not  mean  that  man  ceases  to  have  ideals,  or  ceases 
to  be  primarily  a  creature  of  the  imagination.  But  it 
does  signify  a  radical  change  in  the  character  and 
function  of  the  ideal  realm  which  man  shapes  for  him- 
self. In  the  classic  philosophy,  the  ideal  world  is  essen- 
tially a  haven  in  winch  man  finds  rest  from  the  storms 
of  life;  it  is  an  asylum  in  which  he  takes  refuge  from 
the  troubles  of  existence  with  the  calm  assurance  that 
it  alone  is  supremely  real.  When  the  belief  that  knowl- 
edge is  active  and  operative  takes  hold  of  men,  the  ideal 
realm  is  no  longer  something  aloof  and  separate ;  it  is 
rather  that  collection  of  imagined  possibilities  that 
stimulates  men  to  new  efforts  and  realizations.  It  still 
remains  true  that  the  troubles  which  men  undergo  are 
the  forces  that  lead  them  to  project  pictures  of  a  better 
state  of  things.  But  the  picture  of  the  better  is  shaped 
so  that  it  may  become  an  instrumentality  of  action, 
while  in  the  classic  view  the  Idea  belongs  ready-made  in 
a  noumenal  world.  Hence,  it  is  only  an  object  of 
personal  aspiration  or  consolation,  while  to  the  modern, 
an  idea  is  a  suggestion  of  something  to  be  done  or  of 
a  way  of  doing. 

An  illustration  will,  perhaps,  make  the  difference 
clear.  Distance  is  an  obstacle,  a  source  of  trouble.  It 
separates  friends  and  prevents  intercourse.  It  isolates, 
and  makes  contact  and  mutual  understanding  difficult. 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  119 

This  state  of  affairs  provokes  discontent  and  restless- 
ness ;  it  excites  the  imagination  to  construct  pictures  of 
a  state  of  things  where  human  intercourse  is  not  in- 
juriously affected  by  space.  Now  there  are  two  ways 
out.  One  way  is  to  pass  from  a  mere  dream  of  some 
heavenly  realm  in  which  distance  is  abolished  and  by 
some  magic  all  friends  are  in  perpetual  transparent 
communication,  to  pass,  I  say,  from  some  idle  castle- 
building  to  philosophic  reflection.  Space,  distance,  it 
will  then  be  argued,  is  merely  phenomenal ;  or,  in  a  more 
modern  version,  subjective.  It  is  not,  metaphysically 
speaking,  real.  Hence  the  obstruction  and  trouble  it 
gives  is  not  after  all  "  real "  in  the  metaphysical  sense 
of  reality.  Pure  minds,  pure  spirits,  do  not  live  in  a 
space  world ;  for  them  distance  is  not.  Their  relation- 
ships in  the  true  world  are  not  in  any  way  affected  by 
special  considerations.  Their  intercommunication  is 
direct,  fluent,  unobstructed. 

Does  the  illustration  involve  a  caricature  of  ways  of 
philosophizing  with  which  we  are  all  familiar?  But  if 
it  is  not  an  absurd  caricature,  does  it  not  suggest  that 
much  of  what  philosophies  have  taught  about  the  ideal 
and  noumenal  or  superiorly  real  world,  is  after  all,  only 
casting  a  dream  into  an  elaborate  dialectic  form 
through  the  use  of  a  speciously  scientific  terminology? 
Practically,  the  difficulty,  the  trouble,  remains.  Practi- 
cally, however  it  may  be  "  metaphysically,"  space  is 


120       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

still  real: — it  acts  in  a  definite  objectionable  way. 
Again,  man  dreams  of  some  better  state  of  things. 
From  troublesome  fact  he  takes  refuge  in  fantasy. 
But  this  time,  the  refuge  does  not  remain  a  permanent 
and  remote  asylum. 

The  idea  becomes  a  standpoint  from  which  to  examine 
existing  occurrences  and  to  see  if  there  is  not  among 
them  something  which  gives  a  hint  of  how  communica- 
tion at  a  distance  can  be  effected,  something  to  be 
utilized  as  a  medium  of  speech  at  long  range.  The  sug- 
gestion or  fancy  though  still  ideal  is  [treated  as  a 
possibility  capable  of  realization  in  the  concrete  natural 
world,  not  as  a  superior  reality  apart  from  that  world. 
As  such,  it  becomes  a  platform  from  which  to  scrutinize 
natural  events.  Observed  from  the  point  of  view  of  this 
possibility,  things  disclose  properties  hitherto  unde- 
tected. In  the  light  of  these  ascertainments,  the  idea 
of  some  agency  for  speech  at  a  distance  becomes  less 
vague  and  floating:  it  takes  on  positive  form.  This 
action  and  reaction  goes  on.  The  possibility  or  idea  is 
employed  as  a  method  for  observing  actual  existence; 
and  in  the  light  of  what  is  discovered  the  possibility 
takes  on  concrete  existence.  It  becomes  less  of  a  mere 
idea,  a  fancy,  a  wished-for  possibility,  and  more  of  an 
actual  fact.  Invention  proceeds,  and  at  last  we  have 
the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  first  through  wires,  and 
then  with  no  artificial  medium.     The  concrete  environ- 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  121 

ment  is  transformed  in  the  desired  direction ;  it  is 
idealized  in  fact  and  not  merely  in  fancy.  The  ideal  is 
realized  through  its  own  use  as  a  tool  or  method  of 
inspection,  experimentation,  selection  and  combination 
of  concrete  natural  operations. 

Let  us  pause  to  take  stock  of  results.  The  division 
of  the  world  into  two  kinds  of  Being,  one  superior, 
accessible  only  to  reason  and  ideal  in  nature,  the  other 
inferior,  material,  changeable,  empirical,  accessible  to 
sense-observation,  turns  inevitably  into  the  idea  that 
knowledge  is  contemplative  in  nature.  It  assumes  a 
contrast  between  theory  and  practice  which  was  all  to 
the  disadvantage  of  the  latter.  But  in  the  actual  course 
of  the  development  of  science,  a  tremendous  change  has 
come  about.  When  the  practice  of  knowledge  ceased  to 
be  dialectical  and  became  experimental,  knowing  became 
preoccupied  with  changes  and  the  test  of  knowledge  be- 
came the  ability  to  bring  about  certain  changes.  Know- 
ing, for  the  experimental  sciences,  means  a  certain  kind 
of  intelligently  conducted  doing;  it  ceases  to  be  con- 
templative and  becomes  in  a  true  sense  practical.  Now 
this  implies  that  philosophy,  unless  it  is  to  undergo  a 
complete  break  with  the  authorized  spirit  of  science, 
must  also  alter  its  nature.  It  must  assume  a  practical 
nature ;  it  must  become  operative  and  experimental. 
And  we  have  pointed  out  what  an  enormous  change  this 
transformation  of  philosophy  entails  in  the  two  con- 


122       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ceptions  which  have  played  the  greatest  role  in  historic 
philosophizing — the    conceptions    of    the    "  real "    and 
"  ideal  "  respectively.     The  former  ceases  to  be  some- 
thing ready-made  and  final;  it  becomes  that  which  has 
to  be  accepted  as  the  material  of  change,  as  the  obstruc- 
tions and  the  means  of  certain  specific  desired  changes. 
The  ideal  and  rational  also  ceased  to  be   a  separate 
ready-made  world  incapable  of  being  used  as  a  lever  to 
transform  the  actual  empirical  world,  a  mere  asylum 
from  empirical  deficiencies.   They  represent  intelligently 
thought-out  possibilities  of  the  existent  world  which  may 
be  used  as  methods  for  making  over  and  improving  it. 
Philosophically  speaking,  this  is  the  great  difference 
involved  in  the  change  from  knowledge  and  philosophy 
as  contemplative  to  operative.     The  change  does  not 
mean  the  lowering  in  dignity  of  philosophy  from  a  lofty 
plane  to  one  of  gross  utilitarianism.     It  signifies  that 
the  prime  function  of  philosophy  is  that  of  rationaliz- 
ing the  possibilities  of  experience,  especially  collective 
human  experience.     The  scope  of  this  change  may  be 
realized  by  considering  how  far  we  are  from  accomplish- 
ing it.     In  spite  of  inventions  which  enable  men  to  use 
the  energies  of  nature  for  their  purposes,  we  are  still 
far  from  habitually  treating  knowledge  as  the  method 
of  active  control  of  nature  and  of  experience.     We  tend 
to  think  of  it  after  the  model  of  a  spectator  viewing  a 
finished  picture  rather   than   after  that   of  the  artist 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  123 

producing  the  painting.  Thus  there  arise  all  the  ques- 
tions of  epistemology  with  which  the  technical  student 
of  philosophy  is  so  familiar,  and  which  have  made 
modern  philosophy  in  especial  so  remote  from  the  under- 
standing of  the  everyday  person  and  from  the  results 
and  processes  of  science.  For  these  questions  all  spring 
from  the  assumption  of  a  merely  beholding  mind  on 
one  side  and  a  foreign  and  remote  object  to  be  viewed 
and  noted  on  the  other.  They  ask  how  a  mind  and 
world,  subject  and  object,  so  separate  and  independent 
can  by  any  possibility  come  into  such  relationship  to 
each  other  as  to  make  true  knowledge  possible.  If 
knowing  were  habitually  conceived  of  as  active  and 
operative,  after  the  analogy  of  experiment  guided  by 
hypothesis,  or  of  invention  guided  by  the  imagination 
of  some  possibility,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
first  effect  would  be  to  emancipate  philosophy  from  all 
the  epistemological  puzzles  which  now  perplex  it.  For 
these  all  arise  from  a  conception  of  the  relation  of  mind 
and  world,  subject  and  object,  in  knowing,  which  as- 
sumes that  to  know  is  to  seize  upon  what  is  already 
in  existence. 

Modern  philosophic  thought  has  been  so  preoccupied 
with  these  puzzles  of  epistemology  and  the  disputes 
between  realist  and  idealist,  between  phenomenalist  and 
absolutist,  that  many  students  are  at  a  loss  to  know 
what  would  be  left  for  philosophy  if  there  were  removed 


124       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

both  the  metaphysical  task  of  distinguishing  between  the 
noumenal  and  phenomenal  worlds  and  the  epistemologi- 
cal  task  of  telling  how  a  separate  subject  can  know  an 
independent  object.  But  would  not  the  elimination  of 
these  traditional  problems  permit  philosophy  to  devote 
itself  to  a  more  fruitful  and  more  needed  task?  Would 
it  not  encourage  philosophy  to  face  the  great  social  and 
moral  defects  and  troubles  from  which  humanity  suffers, 
to  concentrate  its  attention  upon  clearing  up  the  causes 
and  exact  nature  of  these  evils  and  upon  developing  a 
clear  idea  of  better  social  possibilities ;  in  short  upon 
projecting  an  idea  or  ideal  which,  instead  of  expressing 
the  notion  of  another  world  or  some  far-away  unrealiz- 
able goal,  would  be  used  as  a  method  of  understanding 
and  rectifying  specific  social  ills? 

This  is  a  vague  statement.  But  note  in  the  first 
place  that  such  a  conception  of  the  proper  province  of 
philosophy  where  it  is  released  from  vain  metaphysics 
and  idle  epistemology  is  in  line  with  the  origin  of  phi- 
losophy sketched  in  the  first  hour.  And  in  the  second 
place,  note  how  contemporary  society,  the  world  over, 
is  in  need  of  more  general  and  fundamental  enlighten- 
ment and  guidance  than  it  now  possesses.  I  have  tried 
to  show  that  a  radical  change  of  the  conception  of 
knowledge  from  contemplative  to  active  is  the  inevitable 
result  of  the  way  in  which  inquiry  and  invention  are 
now  conducted.     But  in  claiming  this,  it  must  also  be 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  125 

conceded,  or  rather  asserted,  that  so  far  the  change  has 
influenced  for  the  most  part  only  the  more  technical 
side  of  human  life.  The  sciences  have  created  new  in- 
dustrial arts.  Man's  physical  command  of  natural 
energies  has  been  indefinitely  multiplied.  There  is  con- 
trol of  the  sources  of  material  wealth  and  prosperity. 
What  would  once  have  been  miracles  are  now  daily 
performed  with  steam  and  coal  and  electricity  and  air, 
and  with  the  human  body.  But  there  are  few  persons 
optimistic  enough  to  declare  that  any  similar  command 
of  the  forces  which  control  man's  social  and  moral  wel- 
fare has  been  achieved. 

Where  is  the  moral  progress  that  corresponds  to 
our  economic  accomplishments?  The  latter  is  the 
direct  fruit  of  the  revolution  that  has  been  wrought 
in  physical  science.  But  where  is  there  a  correspond- 
ing human  science  and  art?  Not  only  has  the  im- 
provement in  the  method  of  knowing  remained  so  far 
mainly  limited  to  technical  and  economic  matters, 
but  this  progress  has  brought  with  it  serious  new  moral 
disturbances.  I  need  only  cite  the  late  war,  the  problem 
of  capital  and  labor,  the  relation  of  economic  classes, 
the  fact  that  while  the  new  science  has  achieved  wonders 
in  medicine  and  surgery,  it  has  also  produced  and  spread 
occasions  for  diseases  and  weaknesses.  These  consider- 
ations indicate  to  us  how  undeveloped  are  our  politics, 
how  crude  and  primitive  our  education,  how  passive  and 


126       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

inert  our  morals.  The  causes  remain  which  brought 
philosophy  into  existence  as  an  attempt  to  find  an  in- 
telligent substitute  for  blind  custom  and  blind  impulse 
as  guides  to  life  and  conduct.  The  attempt  has  not 
been  successfully  accomplished.  Is  there  not  reason  for 
believing  that  the  release  of  philosophy  from  its  burden 
of  sterile  metaphysics  and  sterile  epistemology  instead 
of  depriving  philosophy  of  problems  and  subject-matter 
would  open  a  way  to  questions  of  the  most  perplexing 
and  the  most  significant  sort? 

Let  me  specify  one  problem  quite  directly  suggested 
by  certain  points  in  this  lecture.  It  has  been  pointed 
out  that  the  really  fruitful  application  of  the  contem- 
plative idea  was  not  in  science  but  in  the  esthetic  field. 
It  is  difficult  to  imagine  any  high  development  of  the 
fine  arts  except  where  there  is  curious  and  loving  in- 
terest in  forms  and  motions  of  the  world  quite  irrespec- 
tive of  any  use  to  which  they  may  be  put.  And  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  every  people  that  has  attained 
a  high  esthetic  development  has  been  a  people  in  which 
the  contemplative  attitude  has  flourished — as  the  Greek, 
the  Hindoo,  the  medieval  Christian.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  scientific  attitude  that  has  actually  proved  itself  in 
scientific  progress  is,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  a  prac- 
tical attitude.  It  takes  forms  as  disguises  for  hidden 
processes.  Its  interest  in  change  is  in  what  it  leads  to, 
what  can  be  done  with  it,  to  what  use  it  can  be  put. 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  127 

While  it  has  brought  nature  under  control,  there  is 
something  hard  and  aggressive  in  its  attitude  toward 
nature  unfavorable  to  the  esthetic  enjoyment  of  the 
world.  Surely  there  is  no  more  significant  question  be- 
fore the  world  than  this  question  of  the  possibility  and 
method  of  reconciliation  of  the  attitudes  of  practical 
science  and  contemplative  esthetic  appreciation.  With- 
out the  former,  man  will  be  the  sport  and  victim  of 
natural  forces  which  he  cannot  use  or  control.  With- 
out the  latter,  mankind  might  become  a  race  of  economic 
monsters,  restlessly  driving  hard  bargains  with  nature 
and  with  one  another,  bored  with  leisure  or  capable  of 
putting  it  to  use  only  in  ostentatious  display  and  ex- 
travagant dissipation. 

Like  other  moral  questions,  this  matter  is  social  and 
even  political.  The  western  peoples  advanced  earlier 
on  the  path  of  experimental  science  and  its  applica- 
tions in  control  of  nature  than  the  oriental.  It  is  not, 
I  suppose  wholly  fanciful,  to  believe  that  the  latter  have 
embodied  in  their  habits  of  life  more  of  the  contempla- 
tive, esthetic  and  speculatively  religious  temper,  and 
the  former  more  of  the  scientific,  industrial  and  practi- 
cal. This  difference  and  others  which  have  grown  up 
around  it  is  one  barrier  to  easy  mutual  understanding, 
and  one  source  of  misunderstanding.  The  philosophy 
which,  then,  makes  a  serious  effort  to  comprehend  these 
respective  attitudes  in  their  relation  and  due  balance, 


128       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

could  hardly  fail  to  promote  the  capacity  of  peoples  to 
profit  by  one  another's  experience  and  to  co-operate 
more  effectually  with  one  another  in  the  tasks  of  fruit- 
ful culture. 

Indeed,  it  is  incredible  that  the  question  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  "  real "  and  the  "  ideal  "  should  ever  have 
been  thought  to  be  a  problem  belonging  distinctively  to 
philosophy.  The  very  fact  that  this  most  serious  of 
all  human  issues  has  been  taken  possession  of  by  philos- 
ophy is  only  another  proof  of  the  disasters  that  follow 
in  the  wake  of  regarding  knowledge  and  intellect  as 
something  self-sufficient.  Never  have  the  "  real  "  and 
the  "  ideal  "  been  so  clamorous,  so  self-assertive,  as  at 
the  present  time.  And  never  in  the  history  of  the  world 
have  they  been  so  far  apart.  The  world  war  was  car- 
ried on  for  purely  ideal  ends: — for  humanity,  justice 
and  equal  liberty  for  strong  and  weak  alike.  And  it 
was  carried  on  by  realistic  means  of  applied  science,  by 
high  explosives,  and  bombing  airplanes  and  blockading 
marvels  of  mechanism  that  reduced  the  world  well  nigh 
to  ruin,  so  that  the  serious-minded  are  concerned  for 
the  perpetuity  of  those  choice  values  we  call  civiliza- 
tion. The  peace  settlement  is  loudly  proclaimed  in 
the  name  of  the  ideals  that  stir  man's  deepest  emo- 
tions, but  with  the  most  realistic  attention  to  details  of 
economic  advantage  distributed  in  proportion  to  physi- 
cal power  to  create  future  disturbances. 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  129 

It  is  not  surprising  that  some  men  are  brought  to 
regard  all  idealism  as  a  mere  smoke-screen  behind  which 
the  search  for  material  profit  may  be  more  effectually 
carried  on,  and  are  converted  to  the  materialistic  inter- 
pretation of  history.  "  Reality  "  is  then  conceived  as 
physical  force  and  as  sensations  of  power,  profit  and 
enjoyment;  any  politics  that  takes  account  of  other 
factors,  save  as  elements  of  clever  propaganda  and  for 
control  of  those  human  beings  who  have  not  become 
realistically  enlightened,  is  based  on  illusions.  But 
others  are  equally  sure  that  the  real  lesson  of  the  war 
is  that  humanity  took  its  first  great  wrong  step  when 
it  entered  upon  a  cultivation  of  physical  science  and 
an  application  of  the  fruits  of  science  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  instruments  of  life — industry  and  com- 
merce. They  will  sigh  for  the  return  of  the  day  when, 
while  the  great  mass  died  as  they  were  born  in  animal 
fashion,  the  few  elect  devoted  themselves  not  to  science 
and  the  material  decencies  and  comforts  of  existence 
but  to  "  ideal  "  things,  the  things  of  the  spirit. 

Yet  the  most  obvious  conclusion  would  seem  to  be 
the  impotency  and  the  harmfulness  of  any  and  every 
ideal  that  is  proclaimed  wholesale  and  in  the  abstract, 
that  is?  as  something  in  itself  apart  from  the  detailed 
concrete  existences  whose  moving  possibilities  it  em- 
bodies. The  true  moral  would  seem  to  lie  in  en- 
forcing  the   tragedy   of   that   idealism   which   believes 


130       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

in  a  spiritual  world  which  exists  in  and  by  itself, 
and  the  tragic  need  for  the  most  realistic  study 
of  forces  and  consequences,  a  study  conducted  in  a 
more  scientifically  accurate  and  complete  manner  than 
that  of  the  professed  Real-politik.  For  it  is  not  truly 
realistic  or  scientific  to  take  short  views,  to  sacrifice  the 
future  to  immediate  pressure,  to  ignore  facts  and  forces 
that  are  disagreeable  and  to  magnify  the  enduring 
quality  of  whatever  falls  in  with  immediate  desire.  It 
is  false  that  the  evils  of  the  situation  arise  from  absence 
of  ideals ;  they  spring  from  wrong  ideals.  And  these 
wrong  ideals  have  in  turn  their  foundation  in  the  absence 
in  social  matters  of  that  methodic,  systematic,  impar- 
tial, critical,  searching  inquiry  into  "  real  "  and  opera- 
tive conditions  which  we  call  science  and  which  has 
brought  man  in  the  technical  realm  to  the  command 
of  physical  energies. 

Philosophy,  let  it  be  repeated,  cannot  "  solve  "  the 
problem  of  the  relation  of  the  ideal  and  the  real.  That 
is  the  standing  problem  of  life.  But  it  can  at  least 
lighten  the  burden  of  humanity  in  dealing  with  the 
problem  by  emancipating  mankind  from  the  errors 
which  philosophy  has  itself  fostered — the  existence  of 
conditions  which  are  real  apart  from  their  movement 
into  something  new  and  different,  and  the  existence  of 
ideals,  spirit  and  reason  independent  of  the  possi- 
bilities   of   the   material   and   physical.      For    as   long 


THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  REAL  131 

as  humanity  is  committed  to  this  radically  false  bias, 
it  will  walk  forward  with  blinded  eyes  and  bound  limbs. 
And  philosophy  can  effect,  if  it  will,  something  more  than 
this  negative  task.  It  can  make  it  easier  for  mankind 
to  take  the  right  steps  in  action  by  making  it  clear  that 
a  sympathetic  and  integral  intelligence  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  observation  and  understanding  of  concrete 
social  events  and  forces,  can  form  ideals,  that  is  aims, 
which  shall  not  be  either  illusions  or  mere  emotional 
compensations. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  LOGICAL  RECON- 
STRUCTION 

Logic — like  philosophy  itself — suffers  from  a  curious 
oscillation.  It  is  elevated  into  the  supreme  and  legisla- 
tive science  only  to  fall  into  the  trivial  estate  of  keeper 
of  such  statements  as  A  is  A  and  the  scholastic  verses 
for  the  syllogistic  rules.  It  claims  power  to  state  the 
laws  of  the  ultimate  structure  of  the  universe,  on  the 
ground  that  it  deals  with  the  laws  of  thought  which  are 
the  laws  according  to  which  Reason  has  formed  the 
world.  Then  it  limits  its  pretensions  to  laws  of  correct 
reasoning  which  is  correct  even  though  it  leads  to  no 
matter  of  fact,  or  even  to  material  falsity.  It  is 
regarded  by  the  modern  objective  idealist  as  the  ade- 
quate substitute  for  ancient  ontological  metaphysics ; 
but  others  treat  it  as  that  branch  of  rhetoric  which 
teaches  proficiency  in  argumentation.  For  a  time  a 
superficial  compromise  equilibrium  was  maintained 
wherein  the  logic  of  formal  demonstration  which  the 
Middle  Ages  extracted  from  Aristotle  was  supple- 
mented by  an  inductive  logic  of  discovery  of  truth  that 
Mill  extracted  from  the  practice  of  scientific  men.    But 

132 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  133 

students  of  German  philosophy,  of  mathematics,  and  of 
psychology,  no  matter  how  much  they  attacked  one 
another,  have  made  common  cause  in  attack  upon  the 
orthodox  logics  both  of  deductive  proof  and  inductive 
discovery. 

Logical  theory  presents  a  scene  of  chaos.  There  is 
little  agreement  as  to  its  subject-matter,  scope  or  pur- 
pose. This  disagreement  is  not  formal  or  nominal  but 
affects  the  treatment  of  every  topic.  Take  such  a 
rudimentary  matter  as  the  nature  of  judgment.  Repu- 
table authority  can  be  quoted  in  behalf  of  every  possible 
permutation  of  doctrine.  Judgment  is  the  central  thing 
in  logic;  and  judgment  is  not  logical  at  all,  but  personal 
and  psychological.  If  logical,  it  is  the  primary  func- 
tion to  which  both  conception  and  inference  are  subordi- 
nate ;  and  it  is  an  after-product  from  them.  The  dis- 
tinction of  subject  and  predicate  is  necessary,  and  it  is 
totally  irrelevant;  or  again,  though  it  is  found  in  some 
cases,  it  is  not  of  great  importance.  Among  those  who 
hold  that  the  subject-predicate  relationship  is  essen- 
tial, some  hold  that  judgment  is  an  analysis  of  some- 
thing prior  into  them,  and  others  assert  that  it  is  a 
synthesis  of  them  into  something  else.  Some  hold  that 
reality  is  always  the  subject  of  judgment,  and  others 
that  "  reality  "  is  logically  irrelevant.  Among  those 
who  deny  that  judgment  is  the  attribution  of  predi- 
cate to  subject,  who  regard  it  as  a  relation  of  elements, 


134       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

some  hold  that  the  relation  is  "  internal,"  some  that 
it  is  "  external,"  and  others  that  it  is  sometimes  one 
and  sometimes  the  other. 

Unless  logic  is  a  matter  of  some  practical  account, 
these  contrarieties  are  so  numerous,  so  extensive,  and 
so  irreconcilable  that  they  are  ludicrous.  If  logic  is 
an  affair  of  practical  moment,  then  these  inconsistencies 
are  serious.  They  testify  to  some  deep-lying  cause  of 
intellectual  disagreement  and  incoherency.  In  fact, 
contemporary  logical  theory  is  the  ground  upon  which 
all  philosophical  differences  and  disputes  are  gath- 
ered together  and  focussed.  How  does  the  modification 
in  the  traditional  conception  of  the  relation  of  experi- 
ence and  reason,  the  real  and  ideal  affect  logic? 

It  affects,  in  the  first  place,  the  nature  of  logic  itself. 
If  thought  or  intelligence  is  the  means  of  intentional 
reconstruction  of  experience,  then  logic,  as  an  account 
of  the  procedure  of  thought,  is  not  purely  formal.  It 
is  not  confined  to  laws  of  formally  correct  reasoning 
apart  from  truth  of  subject-matter.  Neither,  on  the 
contrary,  is  it  concerned  with  the  inherent  thought 
structures  of  the  universe,  as  Hegel's  logic  would  have 
it ;  nor  with  the  successive  approaches  of  human  thought 
to  this  objective  thought  structure  as  the  logic  of  Lotze, 
Bosanquet,  and  other  epistemological  logicians  would 
have  it.  If  thinking  is  the  way  in  which  deliberate  re- 
organization of  experience  is  secured,  then  logic  is  such 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  135 

a  clarified  and  systematized  formulation  of  the  pro- 
cedures of  thinking  as  will  enable  the  desired  reconstruc- 
tion to  go  on  more  economically  and  efficiently.  In 
language  familiar  to  students,  logic  is  both  a  science 
and  an  art ;  a  science  so  far  as  it  gives  an  organized 
and  tested  descriptive  account  of  the  way  in  which 
thought  actually  goes  on ;  an  art,  so  far  as  on  the  basis 
of  this  description  it  projects  methods  by  which  future 
thinking  shall  take  advantage  of  the  operations  that 
lead  to  success  and  avoid  those  which  result  in  failure. 

Thus  is  answered  the  dispute  whether  logic  is  em- 
pirical or  normative,  psychological  or  regulative.  It  is 
both.  Logic  is  based  on  a  definite  and  executive  supply 
of  empirical  material.  Men  have  been  thinking  for  ages. 
They  have  observed,  inferred,  and  reasoned  in  all  sorts 
of  ways  and  to  all  kinds  of  results.  Anthropology,  the 
stud}-  of  the  origin  of  myth,  legend  and  cult ;  linguistics 
and  grammar ;  rhetoric  and  former  logical  compositions 
all  tell  us  how  men  have  thought  and  what  have  been  the 
purposes  and  consequences  of  different  kinds  of  think- 
ing. Psychology,  experimental  and  pathological,  makes 
important  contributions  to  our  knowledge  of  how  think- 
ing goes  on  and  to  what  effect.  Especially  does  the 
record  of  the  growth  of  the  various  sciences  afford  in- 
struction in  those  concrete  ways  of  inquiry  and  testing 
which  have  led  men  astray  and  which  have  proved  ef- 
ficacious.    Each  science  from  mathematics  to  history; 


136       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

exhibits  typical  fallacious  methods  and  typical  effica- 
cious methods  in  special  subject-matters.  Logical 
theory  has  thus  a  large,  almost  inexhaustible  field  of 
empirical  study. 

The  conventional  statement  that  experience  only  tells 
us  how  men  have  thought  or  do  think,  while  logic  is 
concerned  with  norms,  with  how  men  should  think,  is 
ludicrously  inept.  Some  sorts  of  thinking  are  shown  by 
experience  to  have  got  nowhere,  or  worse  than  nowhere 
— into  systematized  delusion  and  mistake.  Others  have 
proved  in  manifest  experience  that  they  lead  to  fruitful 
and  enduring  discoveries.  It  is  precisely  in  experience 
that  the  different  consequences  of  different  methods 
of  investigation  and  ratiocination  are  convincingly 
shown.  The  parrot-like  repetition  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween an  empirical  description  of  what  is  and  a  norma- 
tive account  of  what  should  be  merely  neglects  the  most 
striking  fact  about  thinking  as  it  empirically  is — 
namely,  its  flagrant  exhibition  of  cases  of  failure  and 
success — that  is,  of  good  thinking  and  bad  thinking. 
Any  one  who  considers  this  empirical  manifestation  will 
not  complain  of  lack  of  material  from  which  to  con- 
struct a  regulative  art.  The  more  study  that  is  given 
to  empirical  records  of  actual  thought,  the  more  ap- 
parent becomes  the  connection  between  the  specific 
features  of  thinking  which  have  produced  failure  and 
success.     Out  of  this  relationship  of  cause  and  effect 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  137 

as  it  is  empirically  ascertained  grow  the  norms  and 
regulations   of  an   art  of  thinking. 

Mathematics  is  often  cited  as  an  example  of  purely 
normative  thinking  dependent  upon  a  priori  canons  and 
supra-empirical  material.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  how  the 
student  who  approaches  the  matter  historically  can 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  status  of  mathematics  is 
as  empirical  as  that  of  metallurgy.  Men  began  with 
counting  and  measuring  things  just  as  they  began  with 
pounding  and  burning  them.  One  thing,  as  common 
speech  profoundly  has  it,  led  to  another.  Certain  ways 
were  successful — not  merely  in  the  immediately  practical 
sense,  but  in  the  sense  of  being  interesting,  of  arousing 
attention,  of  exciting  attempts  at  improvement.  The 
present-day  mathematical  .  logician  may  present  the 
structure  of  mathematics  as  if  it  had  sprung  all  at  once 
from  the  brain  of  a  Zeus  whose  anatomy  is  that  of  pure 
logic.  But,  nevertheless,  this  very  structure  is  a  product 
of  long  historic  growth,  in  which  all  kinds  of  experi- 
ments have  been  tried,  in  which  some  men  have  struck 
out  in  this  direction  and  some  in  that,  and  in  which  some 
exercises  and  operations  have  resulted  in  confusion  and 
others  in  triumphant  clarifications  and  fruitful  growths ; 
a  history  in  which  matter  and  methods  have  been  con- 
stantly selected  and  worked  over  on  the  basis  of  em- 
pirical success  and  failure. 

The  structure  of  alleged  normative  a  priori  mathe- 


138       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

matics  is  in  truth  the  crowned  result  of  ages  of  toilsome 
experience.  The  metallurgist  who  should  write  on  the 
most  highly  developed  method  of  dealing  with  ores  would 
not,  in  truth,  proceed  any  differently.  He  too  selects,  re- 
fines, and  organizes  the  methods  which  in  the  past  have 
been  found  to  yield  the  maximum  of  achievement.  Logic 
is  a  matter  of  profound  human  importance  precisely 
because  it  is  empirically  founded  and  experimentally 
applied.  So  considered,  the  problem  of  logical  theory 
is  none  other  than  the  problem  of  the  possibility  of  the 
development  and  employment  of  intelligent  method  in 
inquiries  concerned  with  deliberate  reconstruction  of 
experience.  And  it  is  only  saying  again  in  more  spe- 
cific form  what  has  been  said  in  general  form  to  add 
that  while  such  a  logic  has  been  developed  in  re- 
spect to  mathematics  and  physical  science,  intelli- 
gent method,  logic,  is  still  far  to  seek  in  moral  and 
political  affairs. 

Assuming,  accordingly,  this  idea  of  logic  without 
argument,  let  us  proceed  to  discuss  some  of  its  chief 
features.  First,  light  is  thrown  by  the  origin  of  think- 
ing upon  a  logic  which  shall  be  a  method  of  intelligent 
guidance  of  experience.  In  line  with  what  has  already 
been  said  about  experience  being  a  matter  primarily  of 
behavior,  a  sensori-motor  matter,  is  the  fact  that  think- 
ing takes  its  departure  from  specific  conflicts  in  experi- 
ence that  occasion  perplexity  and  trouble.    Men  do  not, 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  139 

in  their  natural  estate,  think  when  they  have  no  troubles 
to  cope  with,  no  difficulties  to  overcome.  A  life  of  ease, 
of  success  without  effort,  would  be  a  thoughtless  life, 
and  so  also  would  a  life  of  ready  omnipotence.  Be- 
ings who  think  are  beings  whose  life  is  so  hemmed  in 
and  constricted  that  they  cannot  directly  carry  through 
a  course  of  action  to  victorious  consummation.  Men 
also  do  not  tend  to  think  when  their  action,  when  they 
are  amid  difficulties,  is  dictated  to  them  by  authority. 
Soldiers  have  difficulties  and  restrictions  in  plenty,  but 
qua  soldiers  (as  Aristotle  would  say)  they  are  not  no- 
torious for  being  thinkers.  Thinking  is  done  for  them, 
higher  up.  The  same  is  too  true  of  most  workingmen 
under  present  economic  conditions.  Difficulties  occasion 
thinking  only  when  thinking  is  the  imperative  or  urgent 
way  out,  only  when  it  is  the  indicated  road  to  a  solu- 
tion. Wherever  external  authority  reigns,  thinking  is 
suspected  and  obnoxious. 

Thinking,  however,  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  a 
personal  solution  of  difficulties  is  sought.  As  we  have 
seen,  dreams,  reveries,  emotional  idealizations  are  roads 
which  are  taken  to  escape  the  strain  of  perplexity  and 
conflict.  According  to  modern  psychology,  many  sys- 
tematized delusions  and  mental  disorders,  probably  hys- 
teria itself,  originate  as  devices  for  getting  freedom 
from  troublesome  conflicting  factors.  Such  considera- 
tions throw  into  relief  some  of  the  traits  essential  to 


140       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

thinking  as  a  way  of  responding  to  difficulty.  The 
short-cut  "  solutions  "  alluded  to  do  not  get  rid  of  the 
conflict  and  problems;  they  only  get  rid  of  the  feeling 
of  it.  They  cover  up  consciousness  of  it.  Because  the 
conflict  remains  in  fact  and  is  evaded  in  thought,  dis- 
orders arise. 

The  first  distinguishing  characteristic  of  thinking 
then  is  facing  the  facts — inquiry,  minute  and  extensive 
scrutinizing,  observation.  Nothing  has  done  greater 
harm  to  the  successful  conduct  of  the  enterprise  of 
thinking  (and  to  the  logics  which  reflect  and  formulate 
the  undertaking)  than  the  habit  of  treating  observation 
as  something  outside  of  and  prior  to  thinking,  and 
thinking  as  something  which  can  go  on  in  the  head  with- 
out including  observation  of  new  facts  as  part  of  itself. 
Every  approximation  to  such  "  thinking  "  is  really  an 
approach  to  the  method  of  escape  and  self-delusion  just 
referred  to.  It  substitutes  an  emotionally  agreeable  and 
rationally  self-consistent  train  of  meanings  for  inquiry 
into  the  features  of  the  situation  which  cause  the  trouble. 
It  leads  to  that  type  of  Idealism  which  has  well  been 
termed  intellectual  somnambulism.  It  creates  a  class  of 
"  thinkers  "  who  are  remote  from  practice  and  hence 
from  testing  their  thought  by  application — a  socially 
superior  and  irresponsible  class.  This  is  the  condition 
causing  the  tragic  division  of  theory  and  practice,  and 
leading  to  an  unreasonable  exaltation  of  theory  on  one 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  141 

side  and  an  unreasonable  contempt  for  it  on  the  other. 
It  confirms  current  practice  in  its  hard  brutalities  and 
dead  routines  just  because  it  has  transferred  thinking 
and  theory  to  a  separate  and  nobler  region.  Thus  has 
the  idealist  conspired  with  the  materialist  to  keep  actual 
life  impoverished  and  inequitable. 

The  isolation  of  thinking  from  confrontation  with 
facts  encourages  that  kind  of  observation  which  merely 
accumulates  brute  facts,  which  occupies  itself  labori- 
ously with  mere  details,  but  never  inquires  into  their 
meaning  and  consequences — a  safe  occupation,  for 
it  never  contemplates  any  use  to  be  made  of  the  ob- 
served facts  in  determining  a  plan  for  changing  the 
situation.  Thinking  which  is  a  method  of  reconstruct- 
ing experience  treats  observation  of  facts,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  the  indispensable  step  of  defining  the  problem, 
of  locating  the  trouble,  of  forcing  home  a  definite,  in- 
stead of  a  merely  vague  emotional,  sense  of  what  the 
difficulty  is  and  where  it  lies.  It  is  not  aimless,  random, 
miscellaneous,  but  purposeful,  specific  and  limited  by 
the  character  of  the  trouble  undergone.  The  purpose  is 
so  to  clarify  the  disturbed  and  confused  situation  that 
reasonable  ways  of  dealing  with  it  may  be  suggested. 
When  the  scientific  man  appears  to  observe  aimlessly, 
it  is  merely  that  he  is  so  in  love  with  problems  as 
sources  and  guides  of  inquiry,  that  he  is  striving  to  turn 
up  a  problem  where  none  appears  on  the  surface:  he 


142       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

is,  as  we  say,  hunting  for  trouble  because  of  the  satis- 
faction to  be  had  in  coping  with  it. 

Specific  and  wide  observation  of  concrete  fact  always, 
then,  corresponds  not  only  with  a  sense  of  a  problem  or 
difficulty,  but  with  some  vague  sense  of  the  meaning  of 
the  difficulty,  that  is,  of  what  it  imports  or  signifies 
in  subsequent  experience.  It  is  a  kind  of  anticipation 
or  prediction  of  what  is  coming.  We  speak,  very  truly, 
of  impending  trouble,  and  in  observing  the  signs  of  what 
the  trouble  is,  we  are  at  the  same  time  expecting,  fore- 
casting— in  short,  framing  an  idea,  becoming  aware 
of  meaning.  When  the  trouble  is  not  only  impending 
but  completely  actual  and  present,  we  are  overwhelmed. 
We  do  not  think,  but  give  way  to  depression.  The  kind 
of  trouble  that  occasions  thinking  is  that  which  is  in- 
complete and  developing,  and  where  what  is  found 
already  in  existence  can  be  employed  as  a  sign  from 
which  to  infer  what  is  likely  to  come.  When  we  intelli- 
gently observe,  we  are,  as  we  say  apprehensive,  as  well 
as  apprehending.  We  are  on  the  alert  for  something 
still  to  come.  Curiosity,  inquiry,  investigation,  are  di- 
rected quite  as  truly  into  what  is  going  to  happen  next 
as  into  what  has  happened.  An  intelligent  interest  in 
the  latter  is  an  interest  in  getting  evidence,  indications, 
symptoms  for  inferring  the  former.  Observation  is 
diagnosis  and  diagnosis  implies  an  interest  in  anticipa- 
tion and  preparation.     It  makes  ready  in  advance  an 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  143 

attitude  of  response  so  that  we  shall  not  be  caught 
unawares. 

That  which  is  not  already  in  existence,  that  which  is 
only  anticipated  and  inferred,  cannot  be  observed.  It 
does  not  have  the  status  of  fact,  of  something  given,  a 
datum,  but  of  a  meaning,  an  idea.  So  far  as  ideas  are 
not  fancies,  framed  by  emotionalized  memory  for  escape 
and  refuge,  they  are  precisely  anticipations  of  some- 
thing still  to  come  aroused  by  looking  into  the  facts  of 
a  developing  situation.  The  blacksmith  watches  his 
iron,  its  color  and  texture,  to  get  evidence  of  what  it 
is  getting  ready  to  pass  into ;  the  physician  observes 
his  patient  to  detect  symptoms  of  change  in  some  definite 
direction ;  the  scientific  man  keeps  his  attention  upon 
his  laboratory  material  to  get  a  clue  as  to  what  will 
happen  under  certain  conditions.  The  very  fact  that 
observation  is  not  an  end  in  itself  but  a  search  for  evi- 
dence and  signs  shows  that  along  with  observation  goes 
inference,  anticipatory  forecast — in  short  an  idea, 
thought  or  conception. 

In  a  more  technical  context,  it  would  be  worth  while 
to  see  what  light  this  logical  correspondence  of  observed 
fact  and  projected  idea  or  meaning  throws  upon  certain 
traditional  philosophical  problems  and  puzzles,  includ- 
ing that  of  subject  and  predicate  in  judgment,  object 
and  subject  in  knowledge,  "  real  "  and  "  ideal  "  gen- 
erally.    But  at  this  time,  we  must  confine  ourselves  to 


144       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

pointing  out  that  this  view  of  the  correlative  origin 
and  function  of  observed  fact  and  projected  idea  in 
experience,  commits  us  to  some  very  important  conse- 
quences concerning  the  nature  of  ideas,  meanings,  con- 
ceptions, or  whatever  word  may  be  employed  to  denote 
the  specifically  mental  function.  Because  they  are  sug- 
gestions of  something  that  may  happen  or  eventuate, 
they  are  (as  we  saw  in  the  case  of  ideals  generally)  plat- 
forms of  response  to  what  is  going  on.  The  man  who 
detects  that  the  cause  of  his  difficulty  is  an  automobile 
bearing  down  upon  him  is  not  guaranteed  safety;  he 
may  have  made  his  observation-forecast  too  late.  But 
if  his  anticipation-perception  comes  in  season,  he  has 
the  basis  for  doing  something  which  will  avert  threaten- 
ing disaster.  Because  he  foresees  an  impending  result, 
he  may  do  something  that  will  lead  to  the  situation 
eventuating  in  some  other  way.  All  intelligent  thinking 
means  an  increment  of  freedom  in  action — an  emancipa- 
tion from  chance  and  fatality.  "  Thought  "  represents 
the  suggestion  of  a  way  of  response  that  is  different 
from  that  which  would  have  been  followed  if  intelligent 
observation  had  not  effected  an  inference  as  to  the 
future. 

Now  a  method  of  action,  a  mode  of  response,  intended 
to  produce  a  certain  result — that  is,  to  enable  the  black- 
smith to  give  a  certain  form  to  his  hot  iron,  the  physi- 
cian to  treat  the  patient  so  as  to  facilitate  recovery,  the 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  145 

scientific  experimenter  to  draw  a  conclusion  which  will 
apply  to  other  cases, — is  by  the  nature  of  the  case  ten- 
tative, uncertain  till  tested  by  its  results.  The  signifi- 
cance of  this  fact  for  the  theory  of  truth  will  be  dis- 
cussed below.  Here  it  is  enough  to  note  that  notions, 
theories,  systems,  no  matter  how  elaborate  and  self-con- 
sistent they  are,  must  be  regarded  as  hypotheses.  They 
are  to  be  accepted  as  bases  of  actions  which  test  them, 
not  as  finalities.  To  perceive  this  fact  is  to  abolish 
rigid  dogmas  from  the  world.  It  is  to  recognize  that 
conceptions,  theories  and  systems  of  thought  are  always 
open  to  development  through  use.  It  is  to  enforce  the 
lesson  that  we  must  be  on  the  lookout  quite  as  much 
for  indications  to  alter  them  as  for  opportunities  to 
assert  them.  They  are  tools.  As  in  the  case  of  all 
tools,  their  value  resides  not  in  themselves  but  in  their 
capacity  to  work  shown  in  the  consequences  of  their 
use. 

Nevertheless,  inquiry  is  free  only  when  the  interest  in 
knowing  is  so  developed  that  thinking  carries  with  it 
something  worth  while  for  itself,  something  having  its 
own  esthetic  and  moral  interest.  Just  because  knowing 
is  not  self-enclosed  and  final  but  is  instrumental  to 
reconstruction  of  situations,  there  is  always  danger  that 
it  will  be  subordinated  to  maintaining  some  precon- 
ceived purpose  or  prejudice.  Then  reflection  ceases  to 
be   complete ;   it   falls   short.      Being  precommitted   to 


146       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

arriving  at  some  special  result,  it  is  not  sincere.  It  is 
one  thing  to  say  that  all  knowing  has  an  end  beyond 
itself,  and  another  thing,  a  thing  of  a  contrary  kind,  to 
say  that  an  act  of  knowing  has  a  particular  end  which 
it  is  bound,  in  advance,  to  reach.  Much  less  is  it  true 
that  the  instrumental  nature  of  thinking  means  that  it 
exists  for  the  sake  of  attaining  some  private,  one-sided 
advantage  upon  which  one  has  set  one's  heart.  Any 
limitation  whatever  of  the  end  means  limitation  in  the 
thinking  process  itself.  It  signifies  that  it  does  not 
attain  its  full  growth  and  movement,  but  is  cramped, 
impeded,  interfered  with.  The  only  situation  in  which 
knowing  is  fully  stimulated  is  one  in  which  the  end  is 
developed  in  the  process  of  inquiry  and  testing. 

Disinterested  and  impartial  inquiry  is  then  far  from 
meaning  that  knowing  is  self-enclosed  and  irresponsible. 
It  means  that  there  is  no  particular  end  set  up  in 
advance  so  as  to  shut  in  the  activities  of  observation, 
forming  of  ideas,  and  application.  Inquiry  is  emanci- 
pated. It  is  encouraged  to  attend  to  every  fact  that 
is  relevant  to  defining  the  problem  or  need,  and  to  follow 
up  every  suggestion  that  promises  a  clue.  The  barriers 
to  free  inquiry  are  so  many  and  so  solid  that  mankind 
is  to  be  congratulated  that  the  very  act  of  investigation 
is  capable  of  itself  becoming  a  delightful  and  absorbing 
pursuit,  capable  of  enlisting  on  its  side  man's  sporting 
instincts. 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  147 

Just  in  the  degree  in  which  thought  ceases  to  be  held 
down  to  ends  fixed  by  social  custom,  a  social  division 
of  labor  grows  up.  Investigation  has  become  a  domi- 
nant life  occupation  for  some  persons.  Only  super- 
ficially, however,  does  this  confirm  the  idea  that  theory 
and  knowledge  are  ends  in  themselves.  They  are,  rela- 
tively speaking,  ends  in  themselves  for  some  persons. 
But  these  persons  represent  a  social  division  of  labor ; 
and  their  specialization  can  be  trusted  only  when  such 
persons  are  in  unobstructed  co-operation  with  other 
social  occupations,  sensitive  to  others'  problems  and 
transmitting  results  to  them  for  wider  application  in 
action.  When  this  social  relationship  of  persons  par- 
ticularly engaged  in  carrying  on  the  enterprise  of  know- 
ing is  forgotten  and  the  class  becomes  isolated,  inquiry 
loses  stimulus  and  purpose.  It  degenerates  into  sterile 
specialization,  a  kind  of  intellectual  busy  work  carried 
on  by  socially  absent-minded  men.  Details  are  heaped  j 
up  in  the  name  of  science,  and  abstruse  dialectical  de-  y 
velopments  of  systems  occur.  Then  the  occupation  is 
"  rationalized "  under  the  lofty  name  of  devotion  to 
truth  for  its  own  sake.  But  when  the  path  of  true 
science  is  retaken  these  things  are  brushed  aside  and 
forgotten.  They  turn  out  to  have  been  the  toy- 
ings  of  vain  and  irresponsible  men.  The  only  guar- 
antee of  impartial,  disinterested  inquiry  is  the 
social     sensitiveness     of    the    inquirer    to    the     needs 


148       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and     problems     of     those    with     whom     he    is     asso- 
ciated. 

As  the  instrumental  theory  is  favorable  to  high 
esteem  for  impartial  and  disinterested  inquiry,  so,  con- 
trary to  the  impressions  of  some  critics,  it  sets  much 
store  upon  the  apparatus  of  deduction.  It  is  a  strange 
notion  that  because  one  says  that  the  cognitive  value  of 
conceptions,  definitions,  generalizations,  classifications 
and  the  development  of  consecutive  implications  is  not 
self-resident,  that  therefore  one  makes  light  of  the  de- 
ductive function,  or  denies  its  fruitfulness  and  neces- 
sity. The  instrumental  theory  only  attempts  to  state 
with  some  scrupulousness  where  the  value  is  found 
and  to  prevent  its  being  sought  in  the  wrong  place. 
It  says  that  knowing  begins  with  specific  observations 
that  define  the  problem  and  ends  with  specific  observa- 
tions that  test  a  hypothesis  for  its  solution.  But  that 
the  idea,  the  meaning,  which  the  original  observations 
suggest  and  the  final  ones  test,  itself  requires  careful 
scrutiny  and  prolonged  development,  the  theory  would 
be  the  last  to  deny.  To  say  that  a  locomotive  is  an 
agency,  that  it  is  intermediate  between  a  need  in  experi- 
ence and  its  satisfaction,  is  not  to  depreciate  the  worth 
of  careful  and  elaborate  construction  of  the  locomotive, 
or  the  need  of  subsidiary  tools  and  processes  that  are 
devoted  to  introducing  improvements  into  its  structure. 
One  would  rather  say  that  because  the  locomotive  is 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  149 

intermediary  in  experience,  not  primary  and  not  final, 
it  is  impossible  to  devote  too  much  care  to  its  con- 
structive development. 

Such  a  deductive  science  as  mathematics  represents 
the  perfecting  of  method.  That  a  method  to  those  con- 
cerned with  it  should  present  itself  as  an  end  on  its 
own  account  is  no  more  surprising  than  that  there 
should  be  a  distinct  business  for  making  any  tool. 
Rarely  are  those  who  invent  and  perfect  a  tool  those 
who  employ  it.  There  is,  indeed,  one  marked  difference 
between  the  physical  and  the  intellectual  instrumental- 
ity. The  development  of  the  latter  runs  far  beyond 
any  immediately  visible  use.  The  artistic  interest  in 
perfecting  the  method  by  itself  is  strong — as  the  uten- 
sils of  civilization  may  themselves  become  works  of  finest 
art.  But  from  the  practical  standpoint  this  difference 
shows  that  the  advantage  as  an  instrumentality  is  on 
the  side  of  the  intellectual  tool.  Just  because  it  is  not 
formed  with  a  special  application  in  mind,  because  it  is 
a  highly  generalized  tool,  it  is  the  more  flexible  in 
adaptation  to  unforeseen  uses.  It  can  be  employed  in 
dealing  with  problems  that  were  not  anticipated.  The 
mind  is  prepared  in  advance  for  all  sorts  of  intellectual 
emergencies,  and  when  the  new  problem  occurs  it  does 
not  have  to  wait  till  it  can  get  a  special  instrument 
ready. 

More  definitely,  abstraction  is  indispensable  if  one 


150       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

experience  is  to  be  applicable  in  other  experiences. 
Every  concrete  experience  in  its  totality  is  unique ;  it  is 
itself,  non-reduplicable.  Taken  in  its  full  concreteness, 
it  yields  no  instruction,  it  throws  no  light.  What  is 
called  abstraction  means  that  some  phase  of  it  is 
selected  for  the  sake  of  the  aid  it  gives  in  grasping 
something  else.  Taken  by  itself,  it  is  a  mangled  frag- 
ment, a  poor  substitute  for  the  living  whole  from  which 
it  is  extracted.  But  viewed  teleologically  or  practically, 
it  represents  the  only  way  in  which  one  experience  can 
be  made  of  any  value  for  another — the  only  way  in 
which  something  enlightening  can  be  secured.  What  is 
called  false  or  vicious  abstractionism  signifies  that  the 
function  of  the  detached  fragment  is  forgotten  and  neg- 
lected, so  that  it  is  esteemed  barely  in  itself  as  some- 
thing of  a  higher  order  than  the  muddy  and  irregular 
concrete  from  which  it  was  wrenched.  Looked  at  func- 
tionally, not  structurally  and  statically,  abstraction 
means  that  something  has  been  released  from  one  experi- 
ence for  transfer  to  another.  Abstraction  is  liberation. 
The  more  theoretical,  the  more  abstract,  an  abstraction, 
or  the  farther  away  it  is  from  anything  experienced  in 
its  concreteness,  the  better  fitted  it  is  to  deal  with 
any  one  of  the  indefinite  variety  of  things  that  may 
later  present  themselves.  Ancient  mathematics  and 
physics  were  much  nearer  the  gross  concrete  experi- 
ence than  are  modern.    For  that  very  reason  they  were 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  151 

more  impotent  in  affording  any  insight  into  and  con- 
trol over  such  concretes  as  present  themselves  in  new 
and  unexpected  forms. 

Abstraction  and  generalization  have  always  been 
recognized  as  close  kin.  It  may  be  said  that  they  are 
the  negative  and  positive  sides  of  the  same  function. 
Abstraction  sets  free  some  factor  so  that  it  may  be 
used.  Generalization  is  the  use.  It  carries  over  and 
extends.  It  is  always  in  some  sense  a  leap  in  the  dark. 
It  is  an  adventure.  There  can  be  no  assurance  in 
advance  that  what  is  extracted  from  one  concrete  can 
be  fruitfully  extended  to  another  individual  case.  Since 
these  other  cases  are  individual  and  concrete  they  must 
be  dissimilar.  The  trait  of  flying  is  detached  from 
the  concrete  bird.  This  abstraction  is  then  carried  over 
to  the  bat,  and  it  is  expected  in  view  of  the  application 
of  the  quality  to  have  some  of  the  other  traits  of  the 
bird.  This  trivial  instance  indicates  the  essence  of 
generalization,  and  also  illustrates  the  riskiness  of  the 
proceeding.  It  transfers,  extends,  applies,  a  result  of 
some  former  experience  to  the  reception  and  interpreta- 
tion of  a  new  one.  Deductive  processes  define,  delimit, 
purify  and  set  in  order  the  conceptions  through  which 
this  enriching  and  directive  operation  is  carried  on, 
but  they  cannot,  however  perfect,  guarantee  the  out- 
come. 

The  pragmatic  value  of  organization  is  so  conspicu- 


152       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ously  enforced  in  contemporary  life  that  it  hardly  seems 
necessarj'  to  dwell  upon  the  instrumental  significance  of 
classification  and  systematization.  When  the  existence 
of  qualitative  and  fixed  species  was  denied  to  be  the 
supreme  object  of  knowledge,  classification  was  often 
regarded,  especially  by  the  empirical  school,  as  merely  a 
linguistic  device.  It  was  convenient  for  memory  and 
communication  to  have  words  that  sum  up  a  number  of 
particulars.  Classes  were  supposed  to  exist  only  in 
speech.  Later,  ideas  were  recognized  as  a  kind  of  ter- 
tium  quid  between  things  and  words.  Classes  were  al- 
lowed to  exist  in  the  mind  as  purely  mental  things. 
The  critical  disposition  of  empiricism  is  well  exemplified 
here.  To  assign  any  objectivity  to  classes  was  to  en- 
courage a  belief  in  eternal  species  and  occult  essences 
and  to  strengthen  the  arms  of  a  decadent  and  obnox- 
ious science — a  point  of  view  well  illustrated  in  Locke. 
General  ideas  are  useful  in  economizing  effort,  enabling 
us  to  condense  particular  experiences  into  simpler  and 
more  easily  carried  bunches  and  making  it  easier  to 
identify  new  observations. 

So  far  nominalism  and  conceptualism — the  theory 
that  kinds  exist  only  in  words  or  in  ideas — was 
on  the  right  track.  It  emphasized  the  teleological 
character  of  systems  and  classifications,  that  they  exist 
for  the  sake  of  economy  and  efficiency  in  reaching  ends. 
But  this  truth  was  perverted  into  a  false  notion,  because 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  153 

the  active  and  doing  side  of  experience  was  denied  or 
ignored.  Concrete  things  have  ways  of  acting,  as  many 
ways  of  acting  as  they  have  points  of  interaction  with 
other  things.  One  thing  is  callous,  unresponsive,  inert 
in  the  presence  of  some  other  things;  it  is  alert,  eager, 
and  on  the  aggressive  with  respect  to  other  things ;  in 
a  third  case,  it  is  receptive,  docile.  Now  different  ways 
of  behaving,  in  spite  of  their  endless  diversity,  may  be 
classed  together  in  view  of  common  relationship  to  an 
end.  No  sensible  person  tries  to  do  everything.  He 
has  certain  main  interests  and  leading  aims  by  which 
he  makes  his  behavior  coherent  and  effective.  To  have 
an  aim  is  to  limit,  select,  concentrate,  group.  Thus  a 
basis  is  furnished  for  selecting  and  organizing  things 
according  as  their  ways  of  acting  are  related  to  car- 
rying forward  pursuit.  Cherry  trees  will  be  differ- 
ently grouped  by  woodworkers,  orchardists,  artists, 
scientists  and  merry-makers.  To  the  execution  of 
different  purposes  different  ways  of  acting  and  re- 
acting on  the  part  of  trees  are  important.  Each 
classification  may  be  equally  sound  when  the  difference 
of  ends  is  borne  in  mind. 

Nevertheless  there  is  a  genuine  objective  standard  for 
the  goodness  of  special  classifications.  One  will  further 
the  cabinetmaker  in  reaching  his  end  while  another  will 
hamper  him.  One  classification  will  assist  the  botanist 
in  carrying  on  fruitfully  his  work  of  inquiry,  and  an- 


154,       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

other  will  retard  and  confuse  him.  The  teleological 
theorv  of  classification  does  not  therefore  commit  us 
to  the  notion  that  classes  are  purely  verbal  or  purely 
mental.  Organization  is  no  more  merely  nominal  or 
mental  in  any  art,  including  the  art  of  inquiry,  than 
it  is  in  a  department  store  or  railway  system.  The 
necessity  of  execution  supplies  objective  criteria. 
Things  have  to  be  sorted  out  and  arranged  so  that 
their  grouping  will  promote  successful  action  for 
ends.  Convenience,  economy  and  efficiency  are  the 
bases  of  classification,  but  these  things  are  not  re- 
stricted to  verbal  communication  with  others  nor  to 
inner  consciousness;  they  concern  objective  action. 
They  must  take  effect  in  the  world. 

At  the  same  time,  a  classification  is  not  a  bare 
transcript  or  duplicate  of  some  finished  and  done-for 
arrangement  pre-existing  in  nature.  It  is  rather  a 
repertory  of  weapons  for  attack  upon  the  future  and 
the  unknown.  For  success,  the  details  of  past  knowl- 
edge must  be  reduced  from  bare  facts  to  meanings,  the 
fewer,  simpler  and  more  extensive  the  better.  They 
must  be  broad  enough  in  scope  to  prepare  inquiry  to 
cope  with  any  phenomenon  however  unexpected.  They 
must  be  arranged  so  as  not  to  overlap,  for  otherwise 
when  they  are  applied  to  new  events  they  interfere 
and  produce  confusion.  In  order  that  there  may  be 
ease   and   economy    of   movement   in   dealing   with   the 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  155 

enormous  diversity  of  occurrences  that  present  them- 
selves, we  must  be  able  to  move  promptly  and  definitely 
from  one  tool  of  attack  to  another.  In  other  words, 
our  various  classes  and  kinds  must  be  themselves  classi- 
fied in  graded  series  from  the  larger  to  the  more  spe- 
cific. There  must  not  only  be  streets,  but  the  streets 
must  be  laid  out  with  reference  to  facilitating  passage 
from  any  one  to  any  other.  Classification  transforms 
a  wilderness  of  by-ways  in  experience  into  a  well- 
ordered  system  of  roads,  promoting  transportation 
and  communication  in  inquiry.  As  soon  as  men  begin 
to  take  foresight  for  the  future  and  to  prepare  them- 
selves in  advance  to  meet  it  effectively  and  prosper- 
ously, the  deductive  operations  and  their  results  gain 
in  importance.  In  every  practical  enterprise  there  are 
goods  to  be  produced,  and  whatever  eliminates  wasted 
material  and  promotes  economy  and  efficiency  of  pro- 
duction is  precious. 

Little  time  is  left  to  speak  of  the  account  of  the 
nature  of  truth  given  by  the  experimental  and  func- 
tional type  of  logic.  This  is  less  to  be  regretted  be- 
cause this  account  is  completely  a  corollary  from  the 
nature  of  thinking  and  ideas.  If  the  view  held  as  to 
the  latter  is  understood,  the  conception  of  truth  fol- 
lows as  a  matter  of  course.  If  it  be  not  understood, 
any  attempt  to  present  the  theory  of  truth  is  bound 
to  be   confusing,   and  the  theory   itself  to   seem   arbi- 


J 


156       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

trary  and  absurd.  //  ideas,  meanings,  conceptions, 
notions,  theories,  systems  are  instrumental  to  an  active 
reorganization  of  the  given  environment,  to  a  removal 
of  some  specific  trouble  and  perplexity,  then  the  test  of 
their  validity  and  value  lies  in  accomplishing  this  work. 
If  they  succeed  in  their  office,  they  are  reliable,  sound, 
valid^  good,  true.  If  they  fail  to  clear  up  confusion, 
to  eliminate  defects,  if  they  increase  confusion,  uncer- 
tainty and  evil  when  they  are  acted  upon,  then  are  they 
false.  Confirmation,  corroboration,  verification  lie  in 
works,  consequences.  Handsome  is  that  handsome  does. 
By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them.  That  which  guides 
us  truly  is  true — demonstrated  capacity  for  such  guid- 
ance is  precisely  what  is  meant  by  truth.  The  adverb 
"  truly  "  is  more  fundamental  than  either  the  adjec- 
tive, true,  or  the  noun,  truth.  An  adverb  expresses  a 
way,  a  mode  of  acting.  Now  an  idea  or  conception  is 
a  claim  or  injunction  or  plan  to  act  in  a  certain  way 
as  the  way  to  arrive  at  the  clearing  up  of  a  specific 
situation.  When  the  claim  or  pretension  or  plan  is 
acted  upon  it  guides  us  truly  or  falsely;  it  leads  us  to 
our  end  or  away  from  it.  Its  active,  dynamic  function 
is  the  all-important  thing  about  it,  and  in  the  quality 
of  activity  induced  by  it  lies  all  its  truth  and  falsity. 
The  hypothesis  that  works  is  the  true  one;  and 
truth  is  an  abstract  noun  applied  to  the  collection 
of      cases,      actual,      foreseen      and      desired,      that 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  157 

receive     confirmation     in     their     works      and     conse- 
quences. 

So  wholly  does  the  worth  of  this  conception  of  truth 
depend  upon  the  correctness  of  the  prior  account  of 
thinking  that  it  is  more  profitable  to  consider  why 
the  conception  gives  offence  than  to  expound  it  on  its 
own  account.  Part  of  the  reason  why  it  has  been 
found  so  obnoxious  is  doubtless  its  novelty  and  defects 
in  its  statement.  Too  often,  for  example,  when  truth 
has  been  thought  of  as  satisfaction,  it  has  been  thought 
of  as  merely  emotional  satisfaction,  a  private  comfort, 
a  meeting  of  purely  personal  need.  But  the  satisfac- 
tion in  question  means  a  satisfaction  of  the  needs  and 
conditions  of  the  problem  out  of  which  the  idea,  the 
purpose  and  method  of  action,  arises.  It  includes 
public  and  objective  conditions.  It  is  not  to  be  manip- 
ulated by  whim  or  personal  idiosyncrasy.  Again 
when  truth  is  defined  as  utility,  it  is  often  thought 
to  mean  utility  for  some  purely  personal  end,  some 
profit  upon  which  a  particular  individual  has  set  his 
heart.  So  repulsive  is  a  conception  of  truth  which 
makes  it  a  mere  tool  of  private  ambition  and  ag- 
grandizement, that  the  wonder  is  that  critics  have 
attributed  such  a  notion  to  sane  men.  As  matter  of 
fact,  truth  as  utility  means  service  in  making  just  that 
contribution  to  reorganization  in  experience  that  the 
idea  or  theory  claims  to  be  able  to  make.  The  usefulness 


158       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  a  road  is  not  measured  by  the  degree  in  which  it 
lends  itself  to  the  purposes  of  a  highwayman.  It  is 
measured  by  whether  it  actually  functions  as  a  road,  as 
a  means  of  easy  and  effective  public  transportation  and 
communication.  And  so  with  the  serviceableness  of  an 
idea  or  hypothesis  as  a  measure  of  its  truth. 

Turning  from  such  rather  superficial  misunderstand- 
ings, we  find,  I  think,  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  recep- 
tion of  this  notion  of  truth  in  an  inheritance  from  the 
classic  tradition  that  has  become  so  deeply  engrained  in 
men's  minds.  In  just  the  degree  in  which  existence  is 
divided  into  two  realms,  a  higher  one  of  perfect  being 
and  a  lower  one  of  seeming,  phenomenal,  deficient 
reality,  truth  and  falsity  are  thought  of  as  fixed,  ready- 
made  static  properties  of  things  themselves.  Supreme 
Reality  is  true  Being,  inferior  and  imperfect  Reality  is 
false  Being.  It  makes  claims  to  Reality  which  it  can- 
not substantiate.  It  is  deceitful,  fraudulent,  inherently 
unworthy  of  trust  and  belief.  Beliefs  are  false  not  be- 
cause they  mislead  us ;  they  are  not  mistaken  ways  of 
thinking.  They  are  false  because  they  admit  and  ad- 
here to  false  existences  or  subsistences.  Other  notions 
are  true  because  they  do  have  to  do  with  true  Being — 
with  full  and  ultimate  Reality.  Such  a  notion  lies  at 
the  back  of  the  head  of  every  one  who  has,  in  however 
an  indirect  way,  been  a  recipient  of  the  ancient  and 
medieval  tradition.    This  view  is  radically  challenged  by 


LOGICAL  RECONSTRUCTION  159 

the  pragmatic  conception  of  truth,  and  the  impossibility 
of  reconciliation  or  compromise  is,  I  think,  the  cause  of 
the  shock  occasioned  by  the  newer  theory. 

This  contrast,  however,  constitutes  the  importance  of 
the  new  theory  as  well  as  the  unconscious  obstruction 
to  its  acceptance.  The  older  conception  worked  out 
practically  to  identify  truth  with  authoritative  dogma. 
A  society  that  chiefly  esteems  order,  that  finds  growth 
painful  and  change  disturbing,  inevitably  seeks  for  a 
fixed  body  of  superior  truths  upon  which  it  may  depend. 
It  looks  backward,  to  something  already  in  existence, 
for  the  source  and  sanction  of  truth.  It  falls  back 
upon  what  is  antecedent,  prior,  original,  a  priori,  for 
assurance.  The  thought  of  looking  ahead,  toward  the 
eventual,  toward  consequences,  creates  uneasiness  and 
fear.  It  disturbs  the  sense  of  rest  that  is  attached  to 
the  ideas  of  fixed  Truth  already  in  existence.  It  puts 
a  heavy  burden  of  responsibility  upon  us  for  search, 
unremitting  observation,  scrupulous  development  of 
hypotheses  and  thoroughgoing  testing.  In  physical 
matters  men  have  slowly  grown  accustomed  in  all  spe- 
cific beliefs  to  identifying  the  true  with  the  verified. 
But  they  still  hesitate  to  recognize  the  implication  of 
this  identification  and  to  derive  the  definition  of  truth 
from  it.  For  while  it  is  nominally  agreed  upon  as  a 
commonplace  that  definitions  ought  to  spring  from  con- 
crete and  specific  cases  rather  than  be  invented  in  the 


160       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

empty  .air  and  imposed  upon  particulars,  there  is  a 
strange  unwillingness  to  act  upon  the  maxim  in  defining 
truth.  To  generalize  the  recognition  that  the  true 
means  the  verified  and  means  nothing  else  places  upon 
men  the  responsibility  for  surrendering  political  and 
moral  dogmas,  and  subjecting  to  the  test  of  conse- 
quences their  most  cherished  prejudices.  Such  a  change 
involves  a  great  change  in  the  seat  of  authority  and  the 
methods  of  decision  in  society.  Some  of  them,  as  first 
fruits  of  the  newer  logic,  will  be  considered  in  the  fol- 
lowing lectures. 


CHAPTER  VII 
RECONSTRUCTION  IN  MORAL  CONCEPTIONS 

The  impact  of  the  alteration  in  methods  of  scientific 
thinking  upon  moral  ideas  is,  in  general,  obvious. 
Goods,  ends  are  multiplied.  Rules  are  softened  into 
principles,  and  principles  are  modified  into  methods  of 
understanding.  Ethical  theory  began  among  the 
Greeks  as  an  attempt  to  find  a  regulation  for  the  con- 
duct of  life  which  should  have  a  rational  basis  and 
purpose  instead  of  being  derived  from  custom.  But 
reason  as  a  substitute  for  custom  was  under  the  obliga- 
tion of  supplying  objects  and  laws  as  fixed  as  those  of 
custom  had  been.  Ethical  theory  ever  since  has  been 
singularly  hypnotized  by  the  notion  that  its  business 
is  to  discover  some  final  end  or  good  or  some  ultimate 
and  supreme  law.  This  is  the  common  element  among 
the  diversity  of  theories.  Some  have  held  that  the  end 
is  loyalty  or  obedience  to  a  higher  power  or  authority ; 
and  they  have  variously  found  this  higher  principle  in 
Divine  Will,  the  will  of  the  secular  ruler,  the  main- 
tenance of  institutions  in  which  the  purpose  of  superiors 
is  embodied,  and  the  rational  consciousness  of  duty.  But 
they  have  differed  from  one  another  because  there  was 

161 


162       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

one  point  in  which  they  were  agreed :  a  single  and  final 
source  of  law.  Others  have  asserted  that  it  is  impossible 
to  locate  morality  in  conformity  to  law-giving  power, 
and  that  it  must  be  sought  in  ends  that  are  goods.  And 
some  have  sought  the  good  in  self-realization,  some  in 
holiness,  some  in  happiness,  some  in  the  greatest  pos- 
sible aggregate  of  pleasures.  And  yet  these  schools 
have  agreed  in  the  assumption  that  there  is  a  single, 
fixed  and  final  good.  They  have  been  able  to  dis- 
pute with  one  another  only  because  of  their  common 
premise. 

The  question  arises  whether  the  way  out  of  the  con- 
fusion and  conflict  is  not  to  go  to  the  root  of  the 
matter  by  questioning  this  common  element.  Is  not  the 
belief  in  the  single,  final  and  ultimate  (whether  con- 
ceived as  good  or  as  authoritative  law)  an  intellectual 
product  of  that  feudal  organization  which  is  disappear- 
ing historically  and  of  that  belief  in  a  bounded,  ordered 
cosmos,  wherein  rest  is  higher  than  motion,  which  has 
disappeared  from  natural  science?  It  has  been  re- 
peatedly suggested  that  the  present  limit  of  intellectual 
reconstruction  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  not  as  yet 
been  seriously  applied  in  the  moral  and  social  disci- 
plines. Would  not  this  further  application  demand 
precisely  that  we  advance  to  a  belief  in  a  plurality  of 
changing,  moving,  individualized  goods  and  ends,  and 
to  a  belief  that  principles,  criteria,  laws  are  intellectual 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  163 

instruments   for   analyzing  individual  or   unique  situa- 
tions? 

The  blunt  assertion  that  every  moral  situation  is  a 
unique  situation  having  its  own  irreplaceable  good  may 
seem  not  merely  blunt  but  preposterous.  For  the 
established  tradition  teaches  that  it  is  precisely  the 
irregularity  of  special  cases  which  makes  necessary  the 
guidance  of  conduct  b}'  universals,  and  that  the  es- 
sence of  the  virtuous  disposition  is  willingness  to  sub- 
ordinate every  particular  case  to  adjudication  by  a 
fixed  principle.  It  would  then  follow  that  submission 
of  a  generic  end  and  law  to  determination  by  the 
concrete  situation  entails  complete  confusion  and  un- 
restrained licentiousness.  Let  us,  however,  follow  the 
pragmatic  rule,  and  in  order  to  discover  the  meaning 
of  the  idea  ask  for  its  consequences.  Then  it  surpris- 
ingly turns  out  that  the  primary  significance  of  the 
unique  and  morally  ultimate  character  of  the  concrete 
situation  is  to  transfer  the  weight  and  burden  of 
morality  to  intelligence.  It  does  not  destroy  responsi- 
bilit}^;  it  only  locates  it.  A  moral  situation  is  one  in  | 
which  judgment  and  choice  are  required  antecedently 
to  overt  action.  The  practical  meaning  of  the  situation 
— that  is  to  say  the  action  needed  to  satisfy  it — is  not 
self-evident.  It  has  to  be  searched  for.  There  are  con- 
flicting desires  and  alternative  apparent  goods.  What 
is  needed  is  to  find  the  right  course  of  action,  the  right 


164       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

good.  Hence,  inquiry  is  exacted:  observation  of  the 
detailed  makeup  of  the  situation ;  analysis  into  its 
diverse  factors ;  clarification  of  what  is  obscure ;  dis- 
counting of  the  more  insistent  and  vivid  traits ;  tracing 
the  consequences  of  the  various  modes  of  action  that 
suggest  themselves ;  regarding  the  decision  reached  as 
hypothetical  and  tentative  until  the  anticipated  or  sup- 
posed consequences  which  led  to  its  adoption  have  been 
squared  with  actual  consequences.  This  inquiry  is  in- 
telligence. Our  moral  failures  go  back  to  some  weak- 
ness of  disposition,  some  absence  of  sympathy?  some  one- 
sided bias  that  makes  us  perform  the  judgment  of  the 
concrete  case  carelessly  or  perversely.  Wide  sympathy, 
keen  sensitiveness,  persistence  in  the  face  of  the  dis- 
agreeable, balance  of  interests  enabling  us  to  undertake 
the  work  of  analysis  and  decision  intelligently  are  the 
distinctively  moral  traits — the  virtues  or  moral  excel- 
lencies. 

It  is  worth  noting  once  more  that  the  underlying 
issue  is,  after  all,  only  the  same  as  that  which  has  been 
already  threshed  out  in  physical  inquiry.  There  too  it 
long  seemed  as  if  rational  assurance  and  demonstration 
could  be  attained  only  if  we  began  with  universal  con- 
ceptions and  subsumed  particular  cases  under  them. 
The  men  who  initiated  the  methods  of  inquiry  that  are 
now  everywhere  adopted  were  denounced  in  their  day 
(and   sincerely)    as    subverters   of  truth   and   foes    of 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  165 

science.  If  they  have  won  in  the  end,  it  is  because,  as 
has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  method  of  universals 
confirmed  prejudices  and  sanctioned  ideas  that  had 
gained  currency  irrespective  of  evidence  for  them ;  while 
placing  the  initial  and  final  weight  upon  the  individual 
case,  stimulated  painstaking  inquiry  into  facts  and  ex- 
amination of  principles.  In  the  end,  loss  of  eternal 
truths  was  more  than  compensated  for  in  the  accession 
of  quotidian  facts.  The  loss  of  the  system  of  superior 
and  fixed  definitions  and  kinds  was  more  than  made 
up  for  by  the  growing  system  of  hypotheses  and  laws 
used  in  classifying  facts.  After  all,  then,  we  are  only 
pleading  for  the  adoption  in  moral  reflection  of  the 
logic  that  has  been  proved  to  make  for  security,  strin- 
gency and  fertility  in  passing  judgments  upon  physical 
phenomena.  And  the  reason  is  the  same.  The  old 
method  in  spite  of  its  nominal  and  esthetic  worship 
of  reason  discouraged  reason,  because  it  hindered 
the  operation  of  scrupulous  and  unremitting  in- 
quiry. 

More  definitely,  the  transfer  of  the  burden  of  the 
moral  life  from  following  rules  or  pursuing  fixed  ends 
over  to  the  detection  of  the  ills  that  need  remedy  in  a 
special  case  and  the  formation  of  plans  and  methods  for 
dealing  with  them,  eliminates  the  causes  which  have 
kept  moral  theory  controversial,  and  which  have  also 
kept  it  remote  from  helpful  contact  with  the  exigencies 


166       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  practice.  The  theory  of  fixed  ends  inevitably  leads 
thought  into  the  bog  of  disputes  that  cannot  be  settled. 
If  there  is  one  summum  bonum,  one  supreme  end,  what 
is  it?  To  consider  this  problem  is  to  place  ourselves  in 
the  midst  of  controversies  that  are  as  acute  now  as  they 
were  two  thousand  years  ago.  Suppose  we  take  a  seem- 
ingly more  empirical  view,  and  say  that  while  there  is 
not  a  single  end,  there  also  are  not  as  many  as  there  are 
specific  situations  that  require  amelioration;  but  there 
are  a  number  of  such  natural  goods  as  health,  wealth, 
honor  or  good  name,  friendship,  esthetic  appreciation, 
learning  and  such  moral  goods  as  justice,  temperance, 
benevolence,  etc.  What  or  who  is  to  decide  the  right 
of  way  when  these  ends  conflict  with  one  another,  as  they 
are  sure  to  do?  Shall  we  resort  to  the  method  that 
once  brought  such  disrepute  upon  the  whole  business 
of  ethics:  Casuistry?  Or  shall  we  have  recourse  to 
what  Bentham  well  called  the  ipse  dixit  method:  the 
arbitrary  preference  of  this  or  that  person  for  this  or 
that  end?  Or  shall  we  be  forced  to  arrange  them  all  in 
ah  order  of  degrees  from  the  highest  good  down  to  the 
least  precious?  Again  we  find  ourselves  in  the  middle 
of  unreconciled  disputes  with  no  indication  of  the  way 
out. 

Meantime,  the  special  moral  perplexities  where  the 
aid  of  intelligence  is  required  go  unenlightened.  We 
cannot  seek  or  attain  health,  wealth,  learning,  justice 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  167 

or  kindness  in  general.  Action  is  always  specific,  con- 
crete, individualized,  unique.  And  consequently  judg- 
ments as  to  acts  to  be  performed  must  be  similarly 
specific.  To  say  that  a  man  seeks  health  or  justice 
is  only  to  say  that  he  seeks  to  live  healthily  or  justly. 
These  things,  like  truth,  are  adverbial.  They  are  modi- 
fiers of  action  in  special  cases.  How  to  live  healthily 
or  justly  is  a  matter  which  differs  with  every  person. 
It  varies  with  his  past  experience,  his  opportunities,  his 
temperamental  and  acquired  weaknesses  and  abilities. 
Not  man  in  general  but  a  particular  man  suffering  from 
some  particular  disability  aims  to  live  healthily,  and 
consequently  health  cannot  mean  for  him  exactly  what  it 
means  for  any  other  mortal.  Healthy  living  is  not  some- 
thing to  be  attained  by  itself  apart  from  other  ways  of 
living.  A  man  needs  to  be  healthy  in  his  life,  not  apart 
from  it,  and  what  does  life  mean  except  the  aggregate 
of  his  pursuits  and  activities?  A  man  who  aims  at 
health  as  a  distinct  end  becomes  a  valetudinarian,  or  a 
fanatic,  or  a  mechanical  performer  of  exercises,  or  an 
athlete  so  one-sided  that  his  pursuit  of  bodily  develop- 
ment injures  his  heart.  When  the  endeavor  to 
realize  a  so-called  end  does  not  temper  and  color  all 
other  activities,  life  is  portioned  out  into  strips  and 
fractions.  Certain  acts  and  times  are  devoted  to  getting 
health,  others  to  cultivating  religion,  others  to  seeking 
learning,  to  being  a  good  citizen,  a  devotee  of  fine  art 


168       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

and  so  on.  This  is  the  only  logical  alternative  to  sub- 
ordinating all  aims  to  the  accomplishment  of  one  alone — 
fanaticism.  This  is  out  of  fashion  at  present,  but  who 
can  say  how  much  of  distraction  and  dissipation  in  life, 
and  how  much  of  its  hard  and  narrow  rigidity  is  the 
outcome  of  men's  failure  to  realize  that  each  situation 
has  its  own  unique  end  and  that  the  whole  personality 
should  be  concerned  with  it?  Surely,  once  more,  what  a 
man  needs  is  to  live  healthily,  and  this  result  so  affects 
all  the  activities  of  his  life  that  it  cannot  be  set  up  as 
a  separate  and  independent  good. 

Nevertheless  the  general  notions  of  health,  disease, 
justice,  artistic  culture  are  of  great  importance:  Not, 
however,  because  this  or  that  case  may  be  brought  ex- 
haustively under  a  single  head  and  its  specific  traits 
shut  out,  but  because  generalized  science  provides  a 
man  as  physician  and  artist  and  citizen,  with  questions 
to  ask,  investigations  to  make,  and  enables  him  to 
understand  the  meaning  of  what  he  sees.  Just  in  the 
degree  in  which  a  physician  is  an  artist  in  his  work  he 
uses  his  science,  no  matter  how  extensive  and  accurate, 
to  furnish  him  with  tools  of  inquiry  into  the  individual 
case,  and  with  methods  of  forecasting  a  method  of 
dealing  with  it.  Just  in  the  degree  in  which,  no  matter 
how  great  his  learning,  he  subordinates  the  individual 
case  to  some  classification  of  diseases  and  some  generic 
rule  of  treatment,  he  sinks  to  the  level  of  the  routine 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  169 

mechanic.  His  intelligence  and  his  action  become  rigid, 
dogmatic,  instead  of  free  and  flexible. 

Moral  goods  and  ends  exist  only  when  something  has 
to  be  done.  The  fact  that  something  has  to  be  done 
proves  that  there  are  deficiencies,  evils  in  the  existent 
situation.  This  ill  is  just  the  specific  ill  that  it  is.  It 
never  is  an  exact  duplicate  of  anything  else.  Conse- 
quently the  good  of  the  situation  has  to  be  discovered, 
projected  and  attained  on  the  basis  of  the  exact  defect 
and  trouble  to  be  rectified.  It  cannot  intelligently  be 
injected  into  the  situation  from  without.  Yet  it  is  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  compare  different  cases,  to  gather 
together  the  ills  from  which  humanity  suffers,  and  to 
generalize  the  corresponding  goods  into  classes.  Health, 
wealth,  industry,  temperance,  amiability,  courtesy, 
learning,  esthetic  capacity,  initiative,  courage,  patience, 
enterprise,  thoroughness  and  a  multitude  of  other  gen- 
eralized ends  are  acknowledged  as  goods.  But  the  value 
of  this  systematization  is  intellectual  or  analytic. 
Classifications  suggest  possible  traits  to  be  on  the  look- 
out for  in  studying  a  particular  case ;  they  suggest 
methods  of  action  to  be  tried  in  removing  the  inferred 
causes  of  ill.  They  are  tools  of  insight ;  their  value  is 
in  promoting  an  individualized  response  in  the  indi- 
vidual situation. 

Morals  is  not  a  catalogue  of  acts  nor  a  set  of  rules 
to  be  applied  like  drugstore  prescriptions  or  cook-book 


170       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

recipes.  The  need  in  morals  is  for  specific  methods 
of  inquiry  and  of  contrivance:  Methods  of  inquiry  to 
locate  difficulties  and  evils ;  methods  of  contrivance  to 
form  plans  to  be  used  as  working  hypotheses  in  dealing 
with  them.  And  the  pragmatic  import  of  the  logic 
of  individualized  situations,  each  having  its  own  irre- 
placeable good  and  principle,  is  to  transfer  the  atten- 
tion of  theory  from  preoccupation  with  general  con- 
ceptions to  the  problem  of  developing  effective  methods 
of  inquiry. 

Two  ethical  consequences  of  great  moment  should  be 
remarked.  The  belief  in  fixed  values  has  bred  a  division 
of  ends  into  intrinsic  and  instrumental,  of  those  that 
are  really  worth  while  in  themselves  and  those  that  are 
of  importance  only  as  means  to  intrinsic  goods.  Indeed, 
it  is  often  thought  to  be  the  very  beginning  of  wisdom, 
of  moral  discrimination,  to  make  this  distinction.  Dia- 
lectically,  the  distinction  is  interesting  and  seems  harm- 
less. But  carried  into  practice  it  has  an  import  that 
is  tragic.  Historically,  it  has  been  the  source  and 
justification  of  a  hard  and  fast  difference  between  ideal 
goods  on  one  side  and  material  goods  on  the  other. 
At  present  those  who  would  be  liberal  conceive  intrinsic 
goods  as  esthetic  in  nature  rather  than  as  exclusively 
religious  or  as  intellectually  contemplative.  But  the 
effect  is  the  same.  So-called  intrinsic  goods,  whether 
religious  or  esthetic,  are  divorced  from  those  interests 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  171 

of  daily  life  which  because  of  their  constancy  and 
urgency  form  the  preoccupation  of  the  great  mass. 
Aristotle  used  this  distinction  to  declare  that  slaves  and 
the  working  class  though  they  are  necessary  for  the 
state — the  commonweal — are  not  constituents  of  it. 
That  which  is  regarded  as  merely  instrumental  must 
approach  drudgery;  it  cannot  command  either  intellec- 
tual, artistic  or  moral  attention  and  respect.  Anything 
becomes  unworthy  whenever  it  is  thought  of  as  intrin- 
sically lacking  worth.  So  men  of  "  ideal  "  interests  have 
chosen  for  the  most  part  the  way  of  neglect  and  escape. 
The  urgency  and  pressure  of  "  lower  "  ends  have  been 
covered  up  by  polite  conventions.  Or,  they  have  been 
relegated  to  a  baser  class  of  mortals  in  order  that  the 
few  might  be  free  to  attend  to  the  goods  that  are  really 
or  intrinsically  worth  while.  This  withdrawal,  in  the 
name  of  higher  ends,  has  left,  for  mankind  at  large  and 
especially  for  energetic  "  practical  "  people  the  lower 
activities  in  complete  command. 

No  one  can  possibly  estimate  how  much  of  the  ob- 
noxious materialism  and  brutality  of  our  economic  life 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  economic  ends  have  been  re- 
garded as  merely  instrumental.  When  they  are  recog- 
nized to  be  as  intrinsic  and  final  in  their  place  as  any 
others,  then  it  will  be  seen  that  they  are  capable  of 
idealization,  and  that  if  life  is  to  be  worth  while,  they 
must  acquire  ideal  and  intrinsic  value.     Esthetic,  re- 


172       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

ligious  and  other  "  ideal  "  ends  are  now  thin  and  meagre 
or  else  idle  and  luxurious  because  of  the  separation  from 
"  instrumental  "  or  economic  ends.  Only  in  connection 
with  the  latter  can  they  be  woven  into  the  texture  of 
daily  life  and  made  substantial  and  pervasive.  The  van- 
ity and  irresponsibility  of  values  that  are  merely  final 
and  not  also  in  turn  means  to  the  enrichment  of  other 
occupations  of  life  ought  to  be  obvious.  But  now  the 
doctrine  of  "  higher  "  ends  gives  aid,  comfort  and  sup- 
port to  every  socially  isolated  and  socially  irrespon- 
sible scholar,  specialist,  esthete  and  religionist.  It  pro- 
tects the  vanity  and  irresponsibility  of  his  calling  from 
observation  by  others  and  by  himself.  The  moral  de- 
ficiency of  the  calling  is  transformed  into  a  cause  of 
admiration  and  gratulation. 

The  other  generic  change  lies  in  doing  away  once  for 
all  with  the  traditional  distinction  between  moral  goods, 
like  the  virtues,  and  natural  goods  like  health,  economic 
security,  art,  science  and  the  like.  The  point  of  view 
under  discussion  is  not  the  only  one  which  has  deplored 
this  rigid  distinction  and  endeavored  to  abolish  it.  Some 
schools  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  regard  moral  excel- 
lencies, qualities  of  character  as  of  value  only  because 
they  promote  natural  goods.  But  the  experimental 
logic  when  carried  into  morals  makes  every  quality 
that  is  judged  to  be  good  according  as  it  contributes 
to  amelioration  of  existing  ills.     And  in  so  doing,  it 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  173 

enforces  the  moral  meaning  of  natural  science.  When 
all  is  said  and  done  in  criticism  of  present  social  de- 
ficiencies, one  may  well  wonder  whether  the  root  diffi- 
culty does  not  lie  in  the  separation  of  natural  and 
moral  science.  When  physics,  chemistry,  biology,  medi- 
cine, contribute  to  the  detection  of  concrete  human 
woes  and  to  the  development  of  plans  for  remedying 
them  and  relieving  the  human  estate,  they  become  moral ; 
they  become  part  of  the  apparatus  of  moral  inquiry  or 
science.  The  latter  then  loses  its  peculiar  flavor  of  the 
didactic  and  pedantic;  its  ultra-moralistic  and  horta- 
tory tone.  It  loses  its  thinness  and  shrillness  as  well  as 
its  vagueness.  It  gains  agencies  that  are  efficacious. 
But  the  gain  is  not  confined  to  the  side  of  moral  science. 
Natural  science  loses  its  divorce  from  humanity;  it 
becomes  itself  humanistic  in  quality.  It  is  something  to 
be  pursued  not  in  a  technical  and  specialized  way  for 
what  is  called  truth  for  its  own  sake,  but  with  the 
sense  of  its  social  bearing,  its  intellectual  indispensable- 
ness.  It  is  technical  only  in  the  sense  that  it  provides 
the  technique  of  social  and  moral  engineering. 

When  the  consciousness  of  science  is  fully  impreg- 
nated with  the  consciousness  of  human  value,  the 
greatest  dualism  which  now  weighs  humanity  down, 
the  split  between  the  material,  the  mechanical,  the  scien- 
tific and  the  moral  and  ideal  will  be  destroyed.  Human 
forces  that  now  waver  because  of  this  division  will  be 


174       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

unified  and  reinforced.  As  long  as  ends  are  not  thought 
of  as  individualized  according  to  specific  needs  and 
opportunities,  the  mind  will  be  content  with  abstrac- 
tions, and  the  adequate  stimulus  to  the  moral  or  social 
use  of  natural  science  and  historical  data  will  be 
lacking.  But  when  attention  is  concentrated  upon  the 
diversified  concretes,  recourse  to  all  intellectual  materials 
needed  to  clear  up  the  special  cases  will  be  imperative. 
At  the  same  time  that  morals  are  made  to  focus  in 
intelligence,  things  intellectual  are  moralized.  The 
vexatious  and  wasteful  conflict  between  naturalism  and 
humanism  is  terminated. 

These  general  considerations  may  be  amplified. 
First :  Inquiry,  discovery  take  the  same  place  in  morals 
that  they  have  come  to  occupy  in  sciences  of  nature. 
Validation,  demonstration  become  experimental,  a  mat- 
ter of  consequences.  Reason,  always  an  honorific  term 
in  ethics,  becomes  actualized  in  the  methods  by  which 
the  needs  and  conditions,  the  obstacles  and  resources, 
of  situations  are  scrutinized  in  detail,  and  intelligent 
plans  of  improvement  are  worked  out.  Remote  and 
abstract  generalities  promote  jumping  at  conclusions, 
"  anticipations  of  nature."  Bad  consequences  are  then 
deplored  as  due  to  natural  perversity  and  untoward 
fate.  But  shifting  the  issue  to  analysis  of  a  specific 
situation  makes  inquiry  obligatory  and  alert  observa- 
tion of  consequences  imperative.     No  past  decision  nor 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  175 

old  principle  can  ever  be  wholly  relied  upon  to  justify  a 
course  of  action.  No  amount  of  pains  taken  in  form- 
ing a  purpose  in  a  definite  case  is  final;  the  conse- 
quences of  its  adoption  must  be  carefully  noted,  and  r 
purpose  held  only  as  a  working  hypothesis  until  results 
confirm  its  rightness.  Mistakes  are  no  longer  either 
mere  unavoidable  accidents  to  be  mourned  or  moral 
sins  to  be  expiated  and  forgiven.  They  are  lessons  in 
■wrong  methods  of  using  intelligence  and  instructions 
as  to  a  better  course  in  the  future.  They  are  indica- 
tions of  the  need  of  revision,  development,  readjust- 
ment. Ends  grow,  standards  of  judgment  are 
improved.  Man  is  under  just  as  much  obligation  to 
develop  his  most  advanced  standards  and  ideals  as  to 
use  conscientiously  those  which  he  already  possesses. 
Moral  life  is  protected  from  falling  into  formalism  and 
rigid  repetition.    It  is  rendered  flexible,  vital,  growing. 

In  the  second  place,  every  case  where  moral  action  is 
required  becomes  of  equal  moral  importance  and  urgency 
with  every  other.  If  the  need  and  deficiencies  of  a 
specific  situation  indicate  improvement  of  health  as  the 
end  and  good,  then  for  that  situation  health  is  the  ulti- 
mate and  supreme  good.  It  is  no  means  to  some- 
thing else.  It  is  a  final  and  intrinsic  value.  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  improvement  of  economic  status,  of 
making  a  living,  of  attending  to  business  and  family 
demands — all  of  the  things  which  under  the  sanction  of 


176       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

fixed  ends  have  been  rendered  of  secondary  and  merely 
instrumental  value,  and  so  relatively  base  and  unim- 
portant. Anything  that  in  a  given  situation  is  an  end 
and  good  at  all  is  of  equal  worth,  rank  and  dignity  with 
every  other  good  of  any  other  situation,  and  deserves  the 
same  intelligent  attention. 

We  note  thirdly  the  effect  in  destroying  the  roots  of 
Phariseeism.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  thinking  of  this 
as  deliberate  hypocrisy  that  we  overlook  its  intellectual 
premises.  The  conception  which  looks  for  the  end  of 
action  within  the  circumstances  of  the  actual  situa- 
tion will  not  have  the  same  measure  of  judgment  for  all 
cases.  When  one  factor  of  the  situation  is  a  person  of 
trained  mind  and  large  resources,  more  will  be  expected 
than  with  a  person  of  backward  mind  and  uncultured 
experience.  The  absurdity  of  applying  the  same  stand- 
ard of  moral  judgment  to  savage  peoples  that  is  used 
with  civilized  will  be  apparent.  No  individual  or  group 
will  be  judged  by  whether  they  come  up  to  or  fall  short 
of  some  fixed  result,  but  by  the  direction  in  which  they 
are  moving.  The  bad  man  is  the  man  who  no  matter 
how  good  he  has  been  is  beginning  to  deteriorate,  to 
grow  less  good.  The  good  man  is  the  man  who  no 
matter  how  morally  unworthy  he  has  been  is  moving  to 
become  better.  Such  a  conception  makes  one  severe  in 
judging  himself  and  humane  in  judging  others.  It 
excludes    that    arrogance    which    always    accompanies 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  177 

judgment  based  on  degree  of  approximation  to  fixed 
ends. 

In  the  fourth  place,  the  process  of  growth,  of  im- 
provement and  progress,  rather  than  the  static  outcome 
and  result,  becomes  the  significant  thing.  Not  health 
as  an  end  fixed  once  and  for  all,  but  the  needed  im- 
provement in  health — a  continual  process — is  the  end 
and  good.  The  end  is  no  longer  a  terminus  or  limit  to 
be  reached.  It  is  the  active  process  of  transforming 
the  existent  situation.  Not  perfection  as  a  final  goal, 
but  the  ever-enduring  process  of  perfecting,  maturing, 
refining  is  the  aim  in  living.  Honesty,  industry,  tem- 
perance, justice,  like  health,  wealth  and  learning,  are 
not  goods  to  be  possessed  as  they  would  be  if  they  ex- 
pressed fixed  ends  to  be  attained.  They  are  directions 
of  change  in  the  quality  of  experience.  Growth  itself 
is  the  only  moral  "  end." 

Although  the  bearing  of  this  idea  upon  the  problem 
of  evil  and  the  controversy  between  optimism  and  pessi- 
mism is  too  vast  to  be  here  discussed,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  touch  upon  it  superficially.  The  problem  of 
evil  ceases  to  be  a  theological  and  metaphysical  one, 
and  is  perceived  to  be  the  practical  problem  of  reducing, 
alleviating,  as  far  as  may  be  removing,  the  evils  of  life. 
Philosophy  is  no  longer  under  obligation  to  find  in- 
genious methods  for  proving  that  evils  are  only  ap- 
parent, not  real,  or  to  elaborate  schemes  for  explaining 


178       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

them  away  or,  worse  yet,  for  justifying  them.  It  as- 
sumes another  obligation : — That  of  contributing  in 
however  humble  a  way  to  methods  that  will  assist  us  in 
discovering  the  causes  of  humanity's  ills.  Pessimism  is 
a  paralyzing  doctrine.  In  declaring  that  the  world  is 
evil  wholesale,  it  makes  futile  all  efforts  to  discover  the 
remediable  causes  of  specific  evils  and  thereby  destroys 
at  the  root  every  attempt  to  make  the  world  better  and 
happier.  Wholesale  optimism,  which  has  been  the  con- 
sequence of  the  attempt  to  explain  evil  away,  is,  however, 
equally  an  incubus. 

After  all,  the  optimism  that  says  that  the  world  is 
already  the  best  possible  of  all  worlds  might  be  regarded 
as  the  most  cynical  of  pessimisms.  If  this  is  the  best 
possible,  what  would  a  world  which  was  fundamentally 
bad  be  like?  Meliorism  is  the  belief  that  the  specific 
conditions  which  exist  at  one  moment,  be  they  com- 
paratively bad  or  comparatively  good,  in  any  event  may 
be  bettered.  It  encourages  intelligence  to  study  the 
positive  means  of  good  and  the  obstructions  to  their 
realization,  and  to  put  forth  endeavor  for  the  improve- 
ment of  conditions.  It  arouses  confidence  and  a  reason- 
able hopefulness  as  optimism  does  not.  For  the  latter 
in  declaring  that  good  is  already  realized  in  ultimate 
reality  tends  to  make  us  gloss  over  the  evils  that  con- 
cretely exist.  It  becomes  too  readily  the  creed  of  those 
who  live  at  ease,  in  comfort,  of  those  who  have  been  sue- 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  179 

cessful  in  obtaining  this  world's  rewards.  Too  readily 
optimism  makes  the  men  who  hold  it  callous  and  blind 
to  the  sufferings  of  the  less  fortunate,  or  ready  to  find 
the  cause  of  troubles  of  others  in  their  personal  vicious- 
ness.  It  thus  co-operates  with  pessimism,  in  spite  of 
the  extreme  nominal  differences  between  the  two,  in 
benumbing  sympathetic  insight  and  intelligent  effort 
in  reform.  It  beckons  men  away  from  the  world  of 
relativity  and  change  into  the  calm  of  the  absolute  and 
eternal. 

The  import  of  many  of  these  changes  in  moral  attitude 
focusses  in  the  idea  of  happiness.  Happiness  has  often 
been  made  the  object  of  the  moralists'  contempt.  Yet 
the  most  ascetic  moralist  has  usually  restored  the  idea 
of  happiness  under  some  other  name,  such  as  bliss. 
Goodness  without  happiness,  valor  and  virtue  without 
satisfaction,  ends  without  conscious  enjoyment — these 
things  are  as  intolerable  practically  as  they  are  self- 
contradictory  in  conception.  Happiness  is  not,  however, 
a  bare  possession ;  it  is  not  a  fixed  attainment.  Such 
a  happiness  is  either  the  unworthy  selfishness  which 
moralists  have  so  bitterly  condemned,  or  it  is,  even  if 
labelled  bliss,  an  insipid  tedium,  a  millennium  of  ease  in 
relief  from  all  struggle  and  labor.  It  could  satisfy 
only  the  most  delicate  of  molly-coddles.  Happiness  is 
found  only  in  success ;  but  success  means  succeeding, 
getting  forward,  moving  in  advance.     It  is  an  active 


180       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

process,  not  a  passive  outcome.  Accordingly  it  in- 
cludes the  overcoming  of  obstacles,  the  elimination  of 
sources  of  defect  and  ill.  Esthetic  sensitiveness  and 
enjoyment  are  a  large  constituent  in  any  worthy  happi- 
ness. But  the  esthetic  appreciation  which  is  totally 
separated  from  renewal  of  spirit,  from  re-creation  of 
mind  and  purification  of  emotion  is  a  weak  and  sickly 
thing,  destined  to  speedy  death  from  starvation.  That 
the  renewal  and  re-creation  come  unconsciously  not  by 
set  intention  but  makes  them  the  more  genuine. 

Upon  the  whole,  utilitarianism  has  marked  the  best 
in  the  transition  from  the  classic  theory  of  ends  and 
goods  to  that  which  is  now  possible.  It  had  definite 
merits.  It  insisted  upon  getting  away  from  vague 
generalities,  and  down  to  the  specific  and  concrete.  It 
subordinated  law  to  human  achievement  instead  of  sub- 
ordinating humanity  to  external  law.  It  taught  that 
institutions  are  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  institu- 
tions ;  it  actively  promoted  all  issues  of  reform.  It 
made  moral  good  natural,  humane,  in  touch  with  the 
natural  goods  of  life.  It  opposed  unearthly  and  other 
worldly  morality.  Above  all,  it  acclimatized  in  human 
imagination  the  idea  of  social  welfare  as  a  supreme  test. 
But  it  was  still  profoundly  affected  in  fundamental 
points  by  old  ways  of  thinking.  It  never  questioned  the 
idea  of  a  fixed,  final  and  supreme  end.  It  only  ques- 
tioned  the  current  notions   as   to   the   nature   of   this 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  181 

end;  and  then  inserted  pleasure  and  the  greatest  pos- 
sible aggregate  of  pleasures  in  the  position  of  the  fixed 
end. 

Such  a  point  of  view  treats  concrete  activities  and 
specific  interests  not  as  worth  while  in  themselves,  or  as 
constituents  of  happiness,  but  as  mere  external  means  to 
getting  pleasures.  The  upholders  of  the  old  tradition 
could  therefore  easily  accuse  utilitarianism  of  making 
not  only  virtue  but  art,  poetry,  religion  and  the  state 
into  mere  servile  means  of  attaining  sensuous  enjoy- 
ments. Since  pleasure  was  an  outcome,  a  result  valuable 
on  its  own  account  independently  of  the  active  processes 
that  achieve  it,  happiness  was  a  thing  to  be  possessed 
and  held  onto.  The  acquisitive  instincts  of  man  were 
exaggerated  at  the  expense  of  the  creative.  Production 
was  of  importance  not  because  of  the  intrinsic  worth  of 
invention  and  reshaping  the  world,  but  because  its 
external  results  feed  pleasure.  Like  every  theory  that 
sets  up  fixed  and  final  aims,  in  making  the  end  passive 
and  possessive,  it  made  all  active  operations  mere  tools. 
Labor  was  an  unavoidable  evil  to  be  minimized. 
Security  in  possession  was  the  chief  thing  practically. 
Material  comfort  and  ease  were  magnified  in  contrast 
with  the  pains  and  risk  of  experimental  creation. 

These  deficiencies,  under  certain  conceivable  condi- 
tions, might  have  remained  merely  theoretical.  But  the 
disposition  of  the  times  and  the  interests  of  those  who 


182       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

propagated  the  utilitarian  ideas,  endowed  them  with 
power  for  social  harm.  In  spite  of  the  power  of  the 
new  ideas  in  attacking  old  social  abuses,  there  were 
elements  in  the  teaching  which  operated  or  protected  to 
sanction  new  social  abuses.  The  reforming  zeal  was 
shown  in  criticism  of  the  evils  inherited  from  the  class 
system  of  feudalism,  evils  economic,  legal  and  political. 
But  the  new  economic  order  of  capitalism  that  was 
superseding  feudalism  brought  its  own  social  evils  with 
it,  and  some  of  these  ills  utilitarianism  tended  to  cover 
up  or  defend.  The  emphasis  upon  acquisition  and  pos- 
session of  enjoyments  took  on  an  untoward  color  in 
connection  with  the  contemporary  enormous  desire  for 
wealth  and  the  enjoyments  it  makes  possible. 

If  utilitarianism  did  not  activety  promote  the  new 
economic  materialism,  it  had  no  means  of  combating  it. 
Its  general  spirit  of  subordinating  productive  activity 
to  the  bare  product  was  indirectly  favorable  to  the 
cause  of  an  unadorned  commercialism.  In  spite  of  its 
interest  in  a  thoroughly  social  aim,  utilitarianism  fos- 
tered a  new  class  interest,  that  of  the  capitalistic 
property-owning  interests,  provided  only  property  was 
obtained  through  free  competition  and  not  by  govern- 
mental favor.  The  stress  that  Bentham  put  on  se- 
curity tended  to  consecrate  the  legal  institution  of 
private  property  provided  only  certain  legal  abuses  in 
connection    with    its    acquisition    and    transfer    were 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  183 

abolished.  Beati  possidentes — provided  possessions  had 
been  obtained  in  accord  with  the  rules  of  the  competi- 
tive game — without,  that  is,  extraneous  favors  from 
government.  Thus  utilitarianism  gave  intellectual  con- 
firmation to  all  those  tendencies  which  make  "business  " 
not  a  means  of  social  service  and  an  opportunity  for 
personal  growth  in  creative  power  but  a  way  of  accumu- 
lating the  means  of  private  enjoyments.  Utilitarian 
ethics  thus  afford  a  remarkable  example  of  the  need 
of  philosophic  reconstruction  which  these  lectures  have 
been  presenting.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  it  reflected  the 
meaning  of  modern  thought  and  aspirations.  But  it 
was  still  tied  down  by  fundamental  ideas  of  that  very 
order  which  it  thought  it  had  completely  left  behind: 
The  idea  of  a  fixed  and  single  end  lying  beyond  the 
diversity  of  human  needs  and  acts  rendered  utilitarian- 
ism incapable  of  being  an  adequate  representative  of  the 
modern  spirit.  It  has  to  be  reconstructed  through 
emancipation  from  its  inherited  elements. 

If  a  few  words  are  added  upon  the  topic  of  education, 
it  is  only  for  the  sake  of  suggesting  that  the  educative 
process  is  all  one  with  the  moral  process,  since  the  latter 
is  a  continuous  passage  of  experience  from  worse  to 
better.  Education  has  been  traditionally  thought  of  as 
preparation :  as  learning,  acquiring  certain  things  be- 
cause they  will  later  be  useful.  The  end  is  remote,  and 
education  is  getting  ready,  is  a  preliminary  to  some- 


184       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

thing  more  important  to  happen  later  on.  Childhood  is 
only  a  preparation  for  adult  life,  and  adult  life  for 
another  life.  Always  the  future,  not  the  present,  has 
been  the  significant  thing  in  education:  Acquisition  of 
knowledge  and  skill  for  future  use  and  enjoyment; 
formation  of  habits  required  later  in  life  in  business, 
good  citizenship  and  pursuit  of  science.  Education  is 
thought  of  also  as  something  needed  by  some  human 
beings  merely  because  of  their  dependence  upon  others. 
We  are  born  ignorant,  unversed,  unskilled,  immature, 
and  consequently  in  a  state  of  social  dependence.  In- 
struction, training,  moral  discipline  are  processes  by 
which  the  mature,  the  adult,  gradually  raise  the  help- 
less to  the  point  where  they  can  look  out  for  themselves. 
The  business  of  childhood  is  to  grow  into  the  independ- 
ence of  adulthood  by  means  of  the  guidance  of  those 
who  have  already  attained  it.  Thus  the  process  of 
education  as  the  main  business  of  life  ends  when  the 
young  have  arrived  at  emancipation  from  social  de- 
pendence. 

These  two  ideas,  generally  assumed  but  rarely  ex- 
plicitly reasoned  out,  contravene  the  conception  that 
growing,  or  the  continuous  reconstruction  of  experience, 
is  the  only  end.  If  at  whatever  period  we  choose  to  take 
a  person,  he  is  still  in  process  of  growth,  then  education 
is  not,  save  as  a  by-product,  a  preparation  for  some- 
thing coming  later.   Getting  from  the  present  the  degree 


MORAL  RECONSTRUCTION  185 

and  kind  of  growth  there  is  in  it  is  education.  This 
is  a  constant  function,  independent  of  age.  The  best 
thing  that  can  be  said  about  any  special  process  of 
education,  like  that  of  the  formal  school  period,  is  that 
it  renders  its  subject  capable  of  further  education: 
more  sensitive  to  conditions  of  growth  and  more  able  to 
take  advantage  of  them.  Acquisition  of  skill,  possession 
of  knowledge,  attainment  of  culture  are  not  ends:  they 
are  marks  of  growth  and  means  to  its  continuing. 

The  contrast  usually  assumed  between  the  period 
of  education  as  one  of  social  dependence  and  of  maturity 
as  one  of  social  independence  does  harm.  We  repeat 
over  and  over  that  man  is  a  social  animal,  and  then  con- 
fine the  significance  of  this  statement  to  the  sphere  in 
which  sociality  usually  seems  least  evident,  politics. 
The  heart  of  the  sociality  of  man  is  in  education.  The 
idea  of  education  as  preparation  and  of  adulthood  as  a 
fixed  limit  of  growth  are  two  sides  of  the  same  obnoxious 
untruth.  If  the  moral  business  of  the  adult  as  well  as 
the  young  is  a  growing  and  developing  experience,  then 
the  instruction  that  comes  from  social  dependencies  and 
interdependencies  are  as  important  for  the  adult  as  for 
the  child.  Moral  independence  for  the  adult  means  ar- 
rest of  growth,  isolation  means  induration.  We  exag- 
gerate the  intellectual  dependence  of  childhood  so  that 
children  are  too  much  kept  in  leading  strings,  and  then 
we  exaggerate  the  independence  of  adult  life  from  inti- 


186       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

macy  of  contacts  and  communication  with  others.  When 
the  identity  of  the  moral  process  with  the  processes  of 
specific  growth  is  realized,  the  more  conscious  and 
formal  education  of  childhood  will  be  seen  to  be  the 
most  economical  and  efficient  means  of  social  advance 
and  reorganization,  and  it  will  also  be  evident  that  the 
test  of  all  the  institutions  of  adult  life  is  their  effect  in 
furthering  continued  education.  Government,  business, 
art,  religion,  all  social  institutions  have  a  meaning,  a 
purpose.  That  purpose  is  to  set  free  and  to  develop  the 
capacities  of  human  individuals  without  respect  to  race, 
sex,  class  or  economic  status.  And  this  is  all  one  with 
saying  that  the  test  of  their  value  is  the  extent  to  which 
they  educate  every  individual  into  the  full  stature  of  his 
possibility.  Democracy  has  many  meanings,  but  if  it 
has  a  moral  meaning,  it  is  found  in  resolving  that  the 
supreme  test  of  all  political  institutions  and  industrial 
arrangements  shall  be  the  contribution  they  make  to 
the  all-around  growth  of  every  member  of  society. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RECONSTRUCTION  AS  AFFECTING 
SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY 

How  can  philosophic  change  seriously  affect  social 
philosophy?  As  far  as  fundamentals  are  concerned, 
every  view  and  combination  appears  to  have  been  for- 
mulated already.  Society  is  composed  of  individuals : 
this  obvious  and  basic  fact  no  philosophy,  whatever  its 
pretensions  to  novelty,  can  question  or  alter.  Hence 
these  three  alternatives :  Society  must  exist  for  the  sake 
of  individuals ;  or  individuals  must  have  their  ends  and 
ways  of  living  set  for  them  by  society ;  or  else  society 
and  individuals  are  correlative,  organic,  to  one  another, 
society  requiring  the  service  and  subordination  of  indi- 
viduals and  at  the  same  time  existing  to  serve  them. 
Beyond  these  three  views,  none  seems  to  be  logically 
conceivable.  Moreover,  while  each  of  the  three  types  in- 
cludes many  subspecies  and  variations  within  itself,  yet 
the  changes  seem  to  have  been  so  thoroughly  rung  that 
at  most  only  minor  variations  are  now  possible. 

Especially  would  it  seem  true  that  the  "  organic  " 
conception  meets  all  the  objections  to  the  extreme  indi- 
vidualistic and  extreme  socialistic  theories,  avoiding  the 

187 


188       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

errors  alike  of  Plato  and  Bentham.  Just  because  so- 
ciety is  composed  of  individuals,  it  would  seem  that  indi- 
viduals and  the  associative  relations  that  hold  them  to- 
gether must  be  of  coequal  importance.  Without  strong 
and  competent  individuals,  the  bonds  and  ties  that  form 
society  have  nothing  to  lay  hold  on.  Apart  from  asso- 
ciations with  one  another,  individuals  are  isolated  from 
one  another  and  fade  and  wither ;  or  are  opposed  to  one 
another  and  their  conflicts  injure  individual  develop- 
ment. Law,  state,  church,  family,  friendship,  industrial 
association,  these  and  other  institutions  and  arrange- 
ments are  necessary  in  order  that  individuals  may  grow 
and  find  their  specific  capacities  and  functions.  With- 
out their  aid  and  support  human  life  is,  as  Hobbes  said, 
brutish,  solitary,  nasty. 

We  plunge  into  the  heart  of  the  matter,  by  asserting 
that  these  various  theories  suffer  from  a  common  defect. 
They  are  all  committed  to  the  logic  of  general  notions 
under  which  specific  situations  are  to  be  brought.  What 
we  want  light  upon  is  this  or  that  group  of  individuals, 
this  or  that  concrete  human  being,  this  or  that  special 
institution  or  social  arrangement.  For  such  a  logic  of 
inquiry,  the  traditionally  accepted  logic  substitutes  dis- 
cussion of  the  meaning  of  concepts  and  their  dialectical 
relationship  to  one  another.  The  discussion  goes  on  in 
terms  of  the  state,  t lie  individual ;  the  nature  of  institu- 
tions as  such,  society  in  general. 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  189 

We  need  guidance  in  dealing  with  particular  perplexi- 
ties in  domestic  life,  and  are  met  by  dissertations  on  the 
Family  or  by  assertions  of  the  sacredness  of  individual 
Personality.  We  want  to  know  about  the  worth  of  the 
institution  of  private  property  as  it  operates  under 
given  conditions  of  definite  time  and  place.  We  meet 
with  the  reply  of  Proudhon  that  property  generally  is 
theft,  or  with  that  of  Hegel  that  the  realization  of  will 
is  the  end  of  all  institutions,  and  that  private  ownership 
as  the  expression  of  mastery  of  personality  over  physi- 
cal nature  is  a  necessary  element  in  such  realization. 
Both  answers  may  have  a  certain  suggestiveness  in  con- 
nection with  specific  situations.  But  the  conceptions  are 
not  proffered  for  what  they  may  be  worth  in  connection 
with  special  historic  phenomena.  They  are  general 
answers  supposed  to  have  a  universal  meaning  that 
covers  and  dominates  all  particulars.  Hence  they  do 
not  assist  inquiry.  They  close  it.  They  are  not  instru- 
mentalities to  be  emplo}red  and  tested  in  clarifying  con- 
crete social  difficulties.  They  are  read}T-made  principles 
to  be  imposed  upon  particulars  in  order  to  determine 
their  nature.  They  tell  us  about  the  state  when  we 
want  to  know  about  some  state.  But  the  implication  is 
that  what  is  said  about  the  state  applies  to  any  state 
that  we  happen  to  wish  to  know  about. 

In  transferring  the  issue  from  concrete  situations  to 
definitions  and  conceptual  deductions,  the  effect,  espe- 


190       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

cially  of  the  organic  theory,  is  to  supply  the  apparatus 
for  intellectual  justification  of  the  established  order. 
Those  most  interested  in  practical  social  progress  and 
the  emancipation  of  groups  from  oppression  have  turned 
a  cold  shoulder  to  the  organic  theory.  The  effect,  if  not 
the  intention,  of  German  idealism  as  applied  in  social 
philosophy  was  to  provide  a  bulwark  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  political  status  quo  against  the  tide  of 
radical  ideas  coming  from  revolutionary  France.  Al- 
though Hegel  asserted  in  explicit  form  that  the  end  of 
states  and  institutions  is  to  further  the  realization  of 
the  freedom  of  all,  his  effect  was  to  consecrate  the  Prus- 
sian State  and  to  enshrine  bureaucratic  absolutism. 
Was  this  apologetic  tendency  accidental,  or  did  it 
spring  from  something  in  the  logic  of  the  notions  that 
were  employed  ? 

Surely  the  latter.  If  we  talk  about  the  state  and  the 
individual,  rather  than  about  this  or  that  political  or- 
ganization and  this  or  that  group  of  needy  and  suffering 
human  beings,  the  tendency  is  to  throw  the  glamor  and 
prestige,  the  meaning  and  value  attached  to  the  general 
notion,  over  the  concrete  situation  and  thereby  to  cover 
up  the  defects  of  the  latter  and  disguise  the  need  of  seri- 
ous reforms.  The  meanings  which  are  found  in  the  gen- 
eral notions  are  injected  into  the  particulars  that  come 
under  them.  Quite  properly  so  if  we  once  grant  the 
logic  of  rigid  universals  under  which  the  concrete  cases 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  191 

have  to  be  subsumed  in  order  to  be  understood  and  ex- 
plained. 

Again,  the  tendency  of  the  organic  point  of  view  is 
to  minimize  the  significance  of  specific  conflicts.  Since 
the  individual  and  the  state  or  social  institution  are  but 
two  sides  of  the  same  reality,  since  they  are  already  rec- 
onciled in  principle  and  conception,  the  conflict  in  any 
particular  case  can  be  but  apparent.  Since  in  theory 
the  individual  and  the  state  are  reciprocally  necessary 
and  helpful  to  one  another,  why  pay  much  attention  to 
the  fact  that  in  this  state  a  whole  group  of  individuals 
are  suffering  from  oppressive  conditions  ?  In  "  reality  " 
their  interests  cannot  be  in  conflict  with  those  of  the 
state  to  which  they  belong;  the  opposition  is  only  super- 
ficial and  casual.  Capital  and  labor  cannot  "  really  " 
conflict  because  each  is  an  organic  necessity  to  the 
other,  and  both  to  the  organized  community  as  a  whole. 
There  cannot  "  really  "  be  any  sex-problem  because  men 
and  women  are  indispensable  both  to  one  another  and 
to  the  state.  In  his  day,  Aristotle  could  easily  employ 
the  logic  of  general  concepts  superior  to  individuals  to 
show  that  the  institution  of  slavery  was  in  the  interests 
both  of  the  state  and  of  the  slave  class.  Even  if  the  in- 
tention is  not  to  justify  the  existing  order  the  effect 
is  to  divert  attention  from  special  situations.  Rational- 
istic logic  formerly  made  men  careless  in  observation  of 
the  concrete  in  physical  philosophy.    It  now  operates  to 


192       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

depress  and  retard  observation  in  specific  social  phe- 
nomena. The  social  philosopher,  dwelling  in  the  region 
of  his  concepts,  "  solves  "  problems  by  showing  the 
relationship  of  ideas,  instead  of  helping  men  solve  prob- 
lems in  the  concrete  by  supplying  them  hypotheses  to  be 
used  and  tested  in  projects  of  reform. 

Meanwhile,  of  course,  the  concrete  troubles  and  evils 
remain.  They  are  not  magically  waived  out  of  existence 
because  in  theory  society  is  organic.  The  region  of 
concrete  difficulties,  where  the  assistance  of  intelligent 
method  for  tentative  plans  for  experimentation  is  ur- 
gently needed,  is  precisely  where  intelligence  fails  to 
operate.  In  this  region  of  the  specific  and  concrete,  men 
are  thrown  back  upon  the  crudest  empiricism,  upon 
short-sighted  opportunism  and  the  matching  of  brute 
forces.  In  theory,  the  particulars  are  all  neatly  dis- 
posed of;  they  come  under  their  appropriate  heading 
and  category ;  they  are  labelled  and  go  into  an  orderly 
pigeon-hole  in  a  systematic  filing  cabinet,  labelled  politi- 
cal science  or  sociology.  But  in  empirical  fact  they 
remain  as  perplexing,  confused  and  unorganized  as  they 
were  before.  So  they  are  dealt  with  not  by  even  an 
endeavor  at  scientific  method  but  by  blind  rule  of 
thumb,  citation  of  precedents,  considerations  of  imme- 
diate advantage,  smoothing  things  over,  use  of  coercive 
force  and  the  clash  of  personal  ambitions.  The  world 
still  survives ;  it  has   therefore  got  on   somehow : — so 


\ 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  193 

much  cannot  be  denied.  The  method  of  trial  and  error 
and  competition  of  selfishnesses  has  somehow  wrought 
out  many  improvements.  But  social  theory  neverthe- 
less exists  as  an  idle  luxury  rather  than  as  a  guiding 
method  of  inquiry  and  planning.  In  the  question  of 
methods  concerned  with  reconstruction  of  special  situa- 
tions rather  than  in  any  refinements  in  the  general  con- 
cepts of  institution,  individuality,  state,  freedom,  law, 
order,  progress,  etc.,  lies  the  true  impact  of  philosophi- 
cal reconstruction. 

Consider  the  conception  of  the  individual  self.  The 
individualistic  school  of  England  and  France  in  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  was  empirical  in  in- 
tent. It  based  its  individualism,  philosophically  speak- 
ing, upon  the  belief  that  individuals  are  alone  real,  that 
classes  and  organizations  are  secondary  and  derived. 
They  are  artificial,  while  individuals  are  natural.  In 
what  way  then  can  individualism  be  said  to  come  under 
the  animadversions  that  have  been  passed?  To  say  the 
defect  was  that  this  school  overlooked  those  connections 
with  other  persons  which  are  a  part  of  the  constitution 
of  every  individual  is  true  as  far  as  it  goes ;  but  unfortu- 
nately it  rarely  goes  beyond  the  point  of  just  that 
wholesale  justification  of  institutions  which  has  been 
criticized. 

The  real  difficulty  is  that  the  individual  is  regarded 
as  something  given,  something  already  there.     Conse- 


\ 


194       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

quently,  he  can  only  be  something  to  be  catered  to,  some- 
thing whose  pleasures  are  to  be  magnified  and  posses- 
sions multiplied.  When  the  individual  is  taken  as  some- 
thing given  already,  anything  that  can  be  done  to  him 
or  for  him  it  can  only  be  by  way  of  external  impres- 
sions and  belongings:  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
comforts,  securities.  Now  it  is  true  that  social  arrange- 
ments, laws,  institutions  are  made  for  man,  rather  than 
that  man  is  made  for  them;  that  they  are  means  and 
agencies  of  human  welfare  and  progress.  But  they  are 
not  means  for  obtaining  something  for  individuals,  not 
even  happiness.  They  are  means  of  creating  indi- 
viduals. Only  in  the  physical  sense  of  physical  bodies 
that  to  the  senses  are  separate  is  individuality  an 
original  datum.  Individuality  in  a  social  and  moral 
sense  is  something  to  be  wrought  out.  It  means  initia- 
tive, inventiveness,  varied  resourcefulness,  assumption 
of  responsibility  in  choice  of  belief  and  conduct.  These 
are  not  gifts,  but  achievements.  As  achievements,  they 
are  not  absolute  but  relative  to  the  use  that  is  to  be 
made  of  them.  And  this  use  varies  with  the  environ- 
ment. 

The  import  of  this  conception  comes  out  in  consider- 
ing the  fortunes  of  the  idea  of  self-interest.  All  mem- 
bers of  the  empirical  school  emphasized  this  idea.  It 
was  the  sole  motive  of  mankind.  Virtue  was  to  be  at- 
tained by  making  benevolent  action  profitable  to  the 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  195 

individual ;  social  arrangements  were  to  be  reformed  so 
that  egoism  and  altruistic  consideration  of  others  would 
be  identified.  Moralists  of  the  opposite  school  were  not 
backward  in  pointing  out  the  evils  of  any  theory  that 
reduced  both  morals  and  political  science  to  means  of 
calculating  self-interest.  Consequently  they  threw  the 
whole  idea  of  interest  overboard  as  obnoxious  to  morals. 
The  effect  of  this  reaction  was  to  strengthen  the  cause 
of  authority  and  political  obscurantism.  When  the 
play  of  interest  is  eliminated,  what  remains?  What 
concrete  moving  forces  can  be  found?  Those  who  iden- 
tified the  self  with  something  ready-made  and  its  in- 
terest with  acquisition  of  pleasure  and  profit  took  the 
most  effective  means  possible  to  reinstate  the  logic  of 
abstract  conceptions  of  law,  justice,  sovereignty,  free- 
dom, etc. — all  of  those  vague  general  ideas  that  for  all 
their  seeming  rigidity  can  be  manipulated  by  any  clever 
politician  to  cover  up  his  designs  and  to  make  the  worse 
seem  the  better  cause.  Interests  are  specific  and  dy- 
namic ;  they  are  the  natural  terms  of  any  concrete  social 
thinking.  But  they  are  damned  beyond  recovery  when 
they  are  identified  with  the  things  of  a  petty  selfishness. 
They  can  be  employed  as  vital  terms  only  when  the 
self  is  seen  to  be  in  process,  and  interest  to  be  a 
name  for  whatever  is  concerned  in  furthering  its  move- 
ment. 

The  same  logic  applies  to  the  old  dispute  of  whether 


196       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

reform  should  start  with  the  individual  or  with  institu- 
tions. When  the  self  is  regarded  as  something  complete 
within  itself,  then  it  is  readily  argued  that  only  internal 
moralistic  changes  are  of  importance  in  general  reform. 
Institutional  changes  are  said  to  be  merely  external. 
They  may  add  conveniences  and  comforts  to  life,  but 
they  cannot  effect  moral  improvements.  The  result  is 
to  throw  the  burden  for  social  improvement  upon  free- 
will in  its  most  impossible  form.  Moreover,  social  and 
economic  passivity  are  encouraged.  Individuals  are  led 
to  concentrate  in  moral  introspection  upon  their  own 
vices  and  virtues,  and  to  neglect  the  character  of  the 
environment.  Morals  withdraw  from  active  concern 
writh  detailed  economic  and  political  conditions.  Let  us 
perfect  ourselves  within,  and  in  due  season  changes  in 
society  will  come  of  themselves  is  the  teaching.  And 
while  saints  are  engaged  in  introspection,  burly  sinners 
run  the  world.  But  when  self-hood  is  perceived  to  be  an 
active  process  it  is  also  seen  that  social  modifications  are 
the  only  means  of  the  creation  of  changed  personalities. 
Institutions  are  viewed  in  their  educative  effect: — with 
reference  to  the  types  of  individuals  they  foster.  The  in- 
terest in  individual  moral  improvement  and  the  social 
interest  in  objective  reform  of  economic  and  political 
conditions  are  identified.  And  inquiry  into  the  meaning 
of  social  arrangements  gets  definite  point  and  direction. 
We  are  led  to  ask  what  the  specific  stimulating,  foster- 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  197 

ing  and  nurturing  power  of  each  specific  social  arrange- 
ment may  be.  The  old-time  separation  between  politics 
and  morals  is  abolished  at  its  root. 

Consequently  we  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  general 
statement  that  society  and  the  state  is  organic  to  the 
individual.  The  question  is  one  of  specific  causations. 
Just  what  response  does  this  social  arrangement,  po- 
litical or  economic,  evoke,  and  what  effect  does  it 
have  upon  the  disposition  of  those  who  engage  in  it? 
Does  it  release  capacity?  If  so,  how  widely?  Among 
a  few,  with  a  corresponding  depression  in  others,  or  in 
an  extensive  and  equitable  way?  Is  the  capacity  which 
is  set  free  also  directed  in  some  coherent  way,  so  that 
it  becomes  a  power,  or  its  manifestation  spasmodic  and 
capricious?  Since  responses  are  of  an  indefinite  di- 
versity of  kind,  these  inquiries  have  to  be  detailed  and 
specific.  Are  men's  senses  rendered  more  delicately  sen- 
sitive and  appreciative,  or  are  they  blunted  and  dulled 
by  this  and  that  form  of  social  organization?  Are  their 
minds  trained  so  that  the  hands  are  more  deft  and  cun- 
ning? Is  curiosity  awakened  or  blunted?  What  is  its 
quality :  is  it  merely  esthetic,  dwelling  on  the  forms  and 
surfaces  of  things  or  is  it  also  an  intellectual  search- 
ing into  their  meaning?  Such  questions  as  these  (as 
well  as  the  more  obvious  ones  about  the  qualities  con- 
ventionally labelled  moral),  become  the  starting-points 
of  inquiries  about  every  institution  of  the  community 


198       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

when  it  is  recognized  that  individuality  is  not  originally 
given  but  is  created  under  the  influences  of  associated 
life.  Like  utilitarianism,  the  theory  subjects  every  form 
of  organization  to  continual  scrutiny  and  criticism. 
But  instead  of  leading  us  to  ask  what  it  does  in  the  way 
of  causing  pains  and  pleasures  to  individuals  already 
in  existence,  it  inquires  what  is  done  to  release  specific 
capacities  and  co-ordinate  them  into  working  powers. 
What  sort  of  individuals  are  created? 

The  waste  of  mental  energy  due  to  conducting  discus- 
sion of  social  affairs  in  terms  of  conceptual  generalities 
is  astonishing.  How  far  would  the  biologist  and  the 
physician  progress  if  when  the  subject  of  respiration  is 
under  consideration,  discussion  confined  itself  to  bandy- 
ing back  and  forth  the  concepts  of  organ  and  organism : 
— If  for  example  one  school  thought  respiration  could 
be  known  and  understood  by  insisting  upon  the  fact  that 
it  occurs  in  an  individual  body  and  therefore  is  an 
"  individual  "  phenomenon,  while  an  opposite  school  in- 
sisted that  it  is  simply  one  function  in  organic  inter- 
action with  others  and  can  be  known  or  understood 
therefore  only  by  reference  to  other  functions  taken  in 
an  equally  general  or  wholesale  way?  Each  proposition 
is  equally  true  and  equally  futile.  What  is  needed  is 
specific  inquiries  into  a  multitude  of  specific  struc- 
tures and  interactions.  Not  only  does  the  solemn 
reiteration  of  categories  of  individual  and  organic  or 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  199 

social  whole  not  further  these  definite  and  detailed  in- 
quiries, but  it  checks  them.  It  detains  thought  within 
pompous  and  sonorous  generalities  wherein  controversy 
is  as  inevitable  as  it  is  incapable  of  solution.  It  is  true 
enough  that  if  cells  were  not  in  vital  interaction  with 
one  another,  they  could  neither  conflict  nor  co-operate. 
But  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  an  "  organic  "  social 
group,  instead  of  answering  any  questions  merely  marks 
the  fact  that  questions  exist:  Just  what  conflicts  and 
what  co-operations  occur,  and  what  are  their  specific 
causes  and  consequences?  But  because  of  the  persist- 
ence within  social  philosophy  of  the  order  of  ideas  that 
has  been  expelled  from  natural  philosophy,  even  sociolo- 
gists take  conflict  or  co-operation  as  general  categories 
upon  which  to  base  their  science,  and  condescend  to  em- 
pirical facts  only  for  illustrations.  As  a  rule,  their 
chief  "  problem  "  is  a  purely  dialectical  one,  covered  up 
by  a  thick  quilt  of  empirical  anthropological  and  his- 
torical citations :  How  do  individuals  unite  to  form  so- 
ciety? How  are  individuals  socially  controlled?  And 
the  problem  is  justly  called  dialectical  because  it  springs 
from  antecedent  conceptions  of  "  individual "  and 
"  social." 

Just  as  "individual"  is  not  one  thing,  but  is  a 
blanket  term  for  the  immense  variety  of  specific  re- 
actions, habits,  dispositions  and  powers  of  human  nature 
that  are  evoked,  and  confirmed  under  the  influences  of 


200       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

associated  life,  so  with  the  term  "  social."  Society  is 
one  word,  but  infinitely  many  things.  It  covers  all  the 
ways  in  which  by  associating  together  men  share  their 
experiences,  and  build  up  common  interests  and  aims ; 
street  gangs,  schools  for  burglary,  clans,  social  cliques, 
trades  unions,  joint  stock  corporations,  villages  and 
international  alliances.  The  new  method  takes  effect  in 
substituting  inquiry  into  these  specific,  changing  and 
relative  facts  (relative  to  problems  and  purposes,  not 
metaphysically  relative)  for  solemn  manipulation  of 
general  notions. 

Strangely  enough,  the  current  conception  of  the  state 
is  a  case  in  point.  For  one  direct  influence  of  the 
classic  order  of  fixed  species  arranged  in  hierarchical 
order  is  the  attempt  of  German  political  philosophy  in 
the  nineteenth  century  to  enumerate  a  definite  number 
of  institutions,  each  having  its  own  essential  and  im- 
mutable meaning;  to  arrange  them  in  an  order  of  "  evo- 
lution "  which  corresponds  with  the  dignity  and  rank 
of  the  respective  meanings.  The  National  State  was 
placed  at  the  top  as  the  consummation  and  culmination, 
and  also  the  basis  of  all  other  institutions. 

Hegel  is  a  striking  example  of  this  industry,  but  he  is 
far  from  the  only  one.  Many  who  have  bitterly  quar- 
relled with  him,  have  only  differed  as  to  the  details  of 
the  "  evolution  "  or  as  to  the  particular  meaning  to  be 
attributed    as    essential   Begriff    to    some    one    of    the 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  201 

enumerated  institutions.  The  quarrel  has  been  bitter 
only  because  the  underlying  premises  were  the  same. 
Particularly  have  many  schools  of  thought,  varying 
even  more  widely  in  respect  to  method  and  conclusion, 
agreed  upon  the  final  consummating  position  of  the 
state.  They  may  not  go  as  far  as  Hegel  in  making  the 
sole  meaning  of  history  to  be  the  evolution  of  National 
Territorial  States,  each  of  which  embodies  more  than 
the  prior  form  of  the  essential  meaning  or  conception  of 
the  State  and  consequently  displaces  it,  until  we  arrive 
at  that  triumph  of  historical  evolution,  the  Prussian 
State.  But  they  do  not  question  the  unique  and  su- 
preme position  of  the  State  in  the  social  hierarchy. 
Indeed  that  conception  has  hardened  into  unquestion- 
able dogma  under  the  title  of  sovereignty. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  tremendously  important 
role  played  by  the  modern  territorial  national  state. 
The  formation  of  these  states  has  been  the  centre  of 
modern  political  history.  France,  Great  Britain,  Spain 
were  the  first  peoples  to  attain  nationalistic  organiza- 
tion, but  in  the  nineteenth  century  their  example  was  fol- 
lowed by  Japan,  Germany  and  Italy,  to  say  nothing  of 
a  large  number  of  smaller  states,  Greece,  Servia,  Bul- 
garia, etc.  As  everybody  knows,  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant phases  of  the  recent  world  war  was  the  struggle 
to  complete  the  nationalistic  movement,  resulting  in  the 
erection    of   Bohemia,    Poland,    etc.,    into    independent 


202       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

states,  and  the  accession  of  Armenia,  Palestine,  etc.,  to 
the  rank  of  candidates. 

The  struggle  for  the  supremacy  of  the  State  over 
other  forms  of  organization  was  directed  against  the 
power  of  minor  districts,  provinces,  principalities, 
against  the  dispersion  of  power  among  feudal  lords  as 
well  as,  in  some  countries,  against  the  pretensions  of  an 
ecclesiastic  potentate.  The  "  State  "  represents  the 
conspicuous  culmination  of  the  great  movement  of  social 
integration  and  consolidation  taking  place  in  the  last 
few  centuries,  tremendously  accelerated  by  the  concen- 
trating and  combining  forces  of  steam  ad  electricity. 
Naturally,  inevitably,  the  students  of  political  science 
have  been  preoccupied  with  this  great  historic  phe- 
nomenon, and  their  intellectual  activities  have  been  di- 
rected to  its  systematic  formulation.  Because  the  con- 
temporary progressive  movement  was  to  establish  the 
unified  state  against  the  inertia  of  minor  social  units 
and  against  the  ambitions  of  rivals  for  power,  political 
theory  developed  the  dogma  of  the  sovereignty  of  the 
national  state,  internally  and  externally. 

As  the  work  of  integration  and  consolidation  reaches 
its  climax,  the  question  arises,  however,  whether  the  na- 
tional state,  once  it  is  firmly  established  and  no  longer 
struggling  against  strong  foes,  is  not  just  an  instru- 
mentality for  promoting  and  protecting  other  and  more 
voluntary  forms  of  association,  rather  than  a  supreme 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  203 

end  in  itself.  Two  actual  phenomena  may  be  pointed  to 
in  support  of  an  affirmative  answer.  Along  with  the 
development  of  the  larger,  more  inclusive  and  more  uni- 
fied organization  of  the  state  has  gone  the  emancipation 
of  individuals  from  restrictions  and  servitudes  previ- 
ously imposed  by  custom  and  class  status.  But  the  in- 
dividuals freed  from  external  and  coercive  bonds  have  not 
remained  isolated.  Social  molecules  have  at  once  recom- 
bined  in  new  associations  and  organizations.  Compul- 
sory associations  have  been  replaced  by  voluntary  ones  ; 
rigid  organizations  by  those  more  amenable  to  human 
choice  and  purposes — more  directly  changeable  at  will. 
What  upon  one  side  looks  like  a  movement  toward  in- 
dividualism, turns  out  to  be  really  a  movement  toward 
multiplying  all  kinds  and  varieties  of  associations: 
Political  parties,  industrial  corporations,  scientific  and 
artistic  organizations,  trade  unions,  churches,  schools, 
clubs  and  societies  without  number,  for  the  cultivation  of 
every  conceivable  interest  that  men  have  in  common.  As 
they  develop  in  number  and  importance,  the  state  tends 
to  become  more  and  more  a  regulator  and  adjuster 
among  them ;  defining  the  limits  of  their  actions,  pre- 
venting and  settling  conflicts. 

Its  "  supremacy "  approximates  that  of  the  con- 
ductor of  an  orchestra,  who  makes  no  music  himself  but 
who  harmonizes  the  activities  of  those  who  in  producing 
it  are  doing  the  thing  intrinsically  worth  while.     The 


204       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

state  remains  highly  important — but  its  importance 
consists  more  and  more  in  its  power  to  foster  and  co- 
ordinate the  activities  of  voluntary  groupings.  Only 
nominally  is  it  in  any  modern  community  the  end  for  the 
sake  of  which  all  the  other  societies  and  organizations 
exist.  Groupings  for  promoting  the  diversity  of  goods 
that  men  share  have  become  the  real  social  units.  They 
occupy  the  place  which  traditional  theory  has  claimed 
either  for  mere  isolated  individuals  or  for  the  supreme 
and  single  political  organization.  Pluralism  is  well 
ordained  in  present  political  practice*  and  demands  a 
modification  of  hierarchical  and  monistic  theory.  Every 
combination  of  human  forces  that  adds  its  own  con- 
tribution of  value  to  life  has  for  that  reason  its  own 
unique  and  ultimate  worth.  It  cannot  be  degraded 
into  a  means  to  glorify  the  State.  One  reason  for  the 
increased  demoralization  of  war  is  that  it  forces  the 
State  into  an  abnormally  supreme  position. 

The  other  concrete  fact  is  the  opposition  between  the 
claim  of  independent  sovereignty  in  behalf  of  the  terri- 
torial national  state  and  the  growth  of  international 
and  what  have  well  been  called  trans-national  interests. 
The  weal  and  woe  of  any  modern  state  is  bound  up  with 
that  of  others.  Weakness,  disorder,  false  principles  on 
the  part  of  any  state  are  not  confined  within  its  boun- 
daries. They  spread  and  infect  other  states.  The  same 
is  true  of  economic,   artistic   and   scientific   advances. 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  205 

Moreover  the  voluntary  associations  just  spoken  of  do 
not  coincide  with  political  boundaries.  Associations  of 
mathematicians,  chemists,  astronomers ;  business  corpo- 
rations, labor  organizations,  churches  are  trans-national 
because  the  interests  they  represent  are  worldwide.  In 
such  ways  as  these,  internationalism  is  not  an  aspiration 
but  a  fact,  not  a  sentimental  ideal  but  a  force.  Yet 
these  interests  are  cut  across  and  thrown  out  of  gear  by 
the  traditional  doctrine  of  exclusive  national  sover- 
eignty. It  is  the  vogue  of  this  doctrine,  or  dogma, 
that  presents  the  strongest  barrier  to  the  effective  for- 
mation of  an  international  mind  which  alone  agrees 
with  the  moving  forces  of  present-day  labor,  commerce, 
science,  art  and  religion. 

Society,  as  was  said,  is  many  associations  not  a  single 
organization.  Society  means  association;  coming  to- 
gether in  joint  intercourse  and  action  for  the  better 
realization  of  any  form  of  experience  which  is  aug- 
mented and  confirmed  by  being  shared.  Hence  there 
are  as  many  associations  as  there  are  goods  which  are 
enhanced  by  being  mutually  communicated  and  partici- 
pated in.  And  these  are  literally  indefinite  in  number. 
Indeed,  capacity  to  endure  publicity  and  communication 
is  the  test  by  which  it  is  decided  whether  a  pretended 
good  is  genuine  or  spurious.  Moralists  have  always  in- 
sisted upon  the  fact  that  good  is  universal,  objective,  not 
just  private,  particular.      But   too   often,   like  Plato, 


206       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

they  have  been  content  with  a  metaphysical  universality 
or,  like  Kant,  with  a  logical  universality.  Communi- 
cation, sharing,  joint  participation  are  the  only  actual 
ways  of  universalizing  the  moral  law  and  end.  We  in- 
sisted at  the  last  hour  upon  the  unique  character  of 
every  intrinsic  good.  But  the  counterpart  of  this 
proposition  is  that  the  situation  in  which  a  good  is 
consciously  realized  is  not  one  of  transient  sensations 
or  private  appetites  but  one  of  sharing  and  communi- 
cation— public,  social.  Even  the  hermit  communes  with 
gods  or  spirits ;  even  misery  loves  company ;  and  the 
most  extreme  selfishness  includes  a  band  of  followers 
or  some  partner  to  share  in  the  attained  good. 
Universalization  means  socialization,  the  extension  of 
the  area  and  range  of  those  who  share  in  a 
good. 

The  increasing  acknowledgment  that  goods  exist  and 
endure  only  through  being  communicated  and  that  asso- 
ciation is  the  means  of  conjoint  sharing  lies  back  of  the 
modern  sense  of  humanity  and  democracy.  It  is  the 
saving  salt  in  altruism  and  philanthropy,  which  with- 
out this  factor  degenerate  into  moral  condescension  and 
moral  interference,  taking  the  form  of  trying  to  regu- 
late the  affairs  of  others  under  the  guise  of  doing  them 
good  or  of  conferring  upon  them  some  right  as  if  it 
were  a  gift  of  charity.  It  follows  that  organization  is 
never  an  end  in  itself.    It  is  a  means  of  promoting  asso- 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  207 

elation,  of  multiplying  effective  points  of  contact  be- 
tween persons,  directing  their  intercourse  into  the  modes 
of  greatest  fruitfulness. 

The  tendency  to  treat  organization  as  an  end  in  itself 
is  responsible  for  all  the  exaggerated  theories  in  which 
individuals  are  subordinated  to  some  institution  to 
which  is  given  the  noble  name  of  society.  Society  is  the 
process  of  associating  in  such  ways  that  experiences, 
ideas,  emotions,  values  are  transmitted  and  made 
common.  To  this  active  process,  both  the  individual 
and  the  institutionally  organized  may  truly  be  said  to 
be  subordinate.  The  individual  is  subordinate  because 
except  in  and  through  communication  of  experience 
from  and  to  others,  he  remains  dumb,  merely  sentient, 
a  brute  animal.  Only  in  association  with  fellows  does 
he  become  a  conscious  centre  of  experience.  Organiza- 
tion, which  is  what  traditional  theory  has  generally 
meant  by  the  term  Society  or  State,  is  also  subordinate 
because  it  becomes  static,  rigid,  institutionalized  when- 
ever it  is  not  employed  to  facilitate  and  enrich  the  con- 
tacts of  human  beings  with  one  another. 

The  long-time  controversy  between  rights  and  duties, 
law  and  freedom  is  another  version  of  the  strife  between 
the  Individual  and  Society  as  fixed  concepts.  Freedom 
for  an  individual  means  growth,  ready  change  when 
modification  is  required. 

It    signifies    an   active   process,   that   of   release   of 


208       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

capacity  from  whatever  hems  it  in.  But  since  society 
can  develop  only  as  new  resources  are  put  at  its  dis- 
posal, it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  freedom  has  positive 
significance  for  individuality  but  negative  meaning  for 
social  interests.  Society  is  strong,  forceful,  stable 
against  accident  only  when  all  its  members  can  function 
to  the  limit  of  their  capacity.  Such  functioning  cannot 
be  achieved  without  allowing  a  leeway  of  experimenta- 
tion beyond  the  limits  of  established  and  sanctioned 
custom.  A  certain  amount  of  overt  confusion  and  ir- 
regularity is  likely  to  accompany  the  granting  of  the 
margin  of  liberty  without  which  capacity  cannot  find 
itself.  But  socially  as  well  as  scientifically  the  great 
thing  is  not  to  avoid  mistakes  but  to  have  them  take 
place  under  conditions  such  that  they  can  be  utilized  to 
increase  intelligence  in  the  future. 

If  British  liberal  social  philosophy  tended,  true  to  the 
spirit  of  its  atomistic  empiricism,  to  make  freedom  and 
the  exercise  of  rights  ends  in  themselves,  the  remedy  is 
not  to  be  found  in  recourse  to  a  philosophy  of  fixed 
obligations  and  authoritative  law  such  as  characterized 
German  political  thinking.  The  latter,  as  events  have 
demonstrated;  is  dangerous  because  of  its  implicit 
menace  to  the  free  self-determination  of  other  social 
groups.  But  it  is  also  weak  internally  when  put  to  the 
final  test.  In  its  hostility  to  the  free  experimentation 
and  power  of  choice  of  the  individual  in  determining 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  209 

social  affairs,  it  limits  the  capacity  of  many  or  most 
individuals  to  share  effectively  in  social  operations,  and 
thereby  deprives  society  of  the  full  contribution  of  all 
its  members.  The  best  guarantee  of  collective  efficiency 
and  power  is  liberation  and  use  of  the  diversity  of  indi- 
vidual capacities  in  initiative,  planning,  foresight, 
vigor  and  endurance.  Personality  must  be  educated, 
and  personality  cannot  be  educated  by  confining  its 
operations  to  technical  and  specialized  things,  or  to  the 
less  important  relationships  of  life.  Full  education 
comes  only  when  there  is  a  responsible  share  on  the  part 
of  each  person,  in  proportion  to  capacity,  in  shaping 
the  aims  and  policies  of  the  social  groups  to  which  he 
belongs.  This  fact  fixes  the  significance  of  democracy. 
It  cannot  be  conceived  as  a  sectarian  or  racial  thing  nor 
as  a  consecration  of  some  form  of  government  which 
has  already  attained  constitutional  sanction.  It  is  but 
a  name  for  the  fact  that  human  nature  is  developed  only 
when  its  elements  take  part  in  directing  things  which 
are  common,  things  for  the  sake  of  which  men  and 
women  form  groups — families,  industrial  companies, 
governments,  churches,  scientific  associations  and  so  on. 
The  principle  holds  as  much  of  one  form  of  association, 
say  in  industry  and  commerce,  as  it  does  in  government. 
The  identification  of  democracy  with  political  democ- 
racy which  is  responsible  for  most  of  its  failures  is,  how- 
ever, based  upon  the  traditional  ideas  which  make  the 


210       RECONSTRUCTION   IN  PHILOSOPHY 

individual  and  the  state  ready-made  entities  in  them- 
selves. 

As  the  new  ideas  find  adequate  expression  in  social 
life,  they  will  be  absorbed  into  a  moral  background,  and 
will  the  ideas  and  beliefs  themselves  be  deepened  and 
be  unconsciously  transmitted  and  sustained.  They  will 
color  the  imagination  and  temper  the  desires  and  af- 
fections. They  will  not  form  a  set  of  ideas  to  be  ex- 
pounded, reasoned  out  and  argumentatively  supported, 
but  will  be  a  spontaneous  way  of  envisaging  life.  Then 
they  will  take  on  religious  value.  The  religious  spirit 
will  be  revivified  because  it  will  be  in  harmony  with  men's 
unquestioned  scientific  beliefs  and  their  ordinary  day- 
by-day  social  activities.  It  will  not  be  obliged  to  lead  a 
timid,  half-concealed  and  half-apologetic  life  because 
tied  to  scientific  ideas  and  social  creeds  that  are  con- 
tinuously eaten  into  and  broken  down.  But  especially 
will  the  ideas  and  beliefs  themselves  be  deepened  and 
intensified  because  spontaneously  fed  by  emotion  and 
translated  into  imaginative  vision  and  fine  art,  while 
they  are  now  maintained  by  more  or  less  conscious  ef- 
fort, by  deliberate  reflection,  by  taking  thought.  They 
are  technical  and  abstract  just  because  they  are  not  as 
yet  carried  as  matter  of  course  by  imagination  and 
feelings. 

We  began  by  pointing  out  that  European  philosophy 
arose  when  intellectual  methods   and  scientific   results 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  211 

moved  away  from  social  traditions  which  had  consoli- 
dated and  embodied  the  fruits  of  spontaneous  desire  and 
fancy.  It  was  pointed  out  that  philosophy  had  ever 
since  had  the  problem  of  adjusting  the  dry,  thin  and 
meagre  scientific  standpoint  with  the  obstinately  per- 
sisting body  of  warm  and  abounding  imaginative  beliefs. 
Conceptions  of  possibility,  progress,  free  movement  and 
infinitely  diversified  opportunity  have  been  suggested  by 
modern  science.  But  until  they  have  displaced  from 
imagination  the  heritage  of  the  immutable  and  the  once- 
for-all  ordered  and  systematized,  the  ideas  of  mech- 
anism and  matter  will  lie  like  a  dead  weight  upon  the 
emotions,  paralyzing  religion  and  distorting  art.  When 
the  liberation  of  capacity  no  longer  seems  a  menace  to 
organization  and  established  institutions,  something 
that  cannot  be  avoided  practical!}'  and  yet  something 
that  is  a  threat  to  conservation  of  the  most  precious 
values  of  the  past,  when  the  liberating  of  human  capacity 
operates  as  a  socially  creative  force,  art  will  not  be  a 
luxury,  a  stranger  to  the  daily  occupations  of  making 
a  living.  Making  a  living  economically  speaking,  will 
be  at  one  with  making  a  life  that  is  worth  living.  And 
when  the  emotional  force,  the  mystic  force  one  might 
say,  of  communication,  of  the  miracle  of  shared  life 
and  shared  experience  is  spontaneously  felt,  the  hard- 
ness and  crudeness  of  contemporary  life  will  be  bathed 
in  the  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea. 


212       RECONSTRUCTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Poetry,  art,  religion  are  precious  things.  They  can- 
not be  maintained  by  lingering  in  the  past  and  futilely 
wishing  to  restore  what  the  movement  of  events  in 
science,  industry  and  politics  has  destroyed.  They  are 
an  out-flowering  of  thought  and  desires  that  uncon- 
sciously converge  into  a  disposition  of  imagination  as  a 
result  of  thousands  and  thousands  of  daily  episodes  and 
contact.  They  cannot  be  willed  into  existence  or 
coerced  into  being.  The  wind  of  the  spirit  bloweth 
where  it  listeth  and  the  kingdom  of  God  in  such  things 
does  not  come  with  observation.  But  while  it  is  im- 
possible to  retain  and  recover  by  deliberate  volition  old 
sources  of  religion  and  art  that  have  been  discredited,  it 
is  possible  to  expedite  the  development  of  the  vital 
sources  of  a  religion  and  art  that  are  yet  to  be.  Not 
indeed  by  action  directly  aimed  at  their  production,  but 
by  substituting  faith  in  the  active  tendencies  of  the  day 
for  dread  and  dislike  of  them,  and  by  the  courage  of 
intelligence  to  follow  whither  social  and  scientific 
changes  direct  us.  We  are  weak  today  in  ideal  matters 
because  intelligence  is  divorced  from  aspiration,.  The 
bare  force  of  circumstance  compels  us  onwards  in  the 
daily  detail  of  our  beliefs  and  acts,  but  our  deeper 
thoughts  and  desires  turn  backwards.  When  philoso- 
phy shall  have  co-operated  with  the  course  of  events  and 
made  clear  and  coherent  the  meaning  of  the  daily  detail, 
science  and  emotion  will  interpenetrate,  practice  and 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  213 

imagination  will  embrace.  Poetry  and  religious  feeling 
will  be  the  unforced  flowers  of  life.  To  further  this 
articulation  and  revelation  of  the  meanings  of  the  cur- 
rent course  of  events  is  the  task  and  problem  of  philoso- 
phy in  days  of  transition. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Absolute  reality,  23,  27 

Absolutism,  97,  190;  Kant 
and,  99 

Abstract  definition,  20 

Abstractions,  149-150,  174 

Absurdities,  10 

Achievements,  194 

Action,  kind  of^  80 

Adult  life,  185,  186 

America,  41 

Amoeba,  91 

Animals,  dramatisation  in 
primitive  life  of  man,  4 

Antiquity,  33 

Apprehension,  142 

Aquinas,   55,   106 

Argumentation,  31,  132 

Aristotle,  13,  17,  19,  55;  Bacon's 
charge  against,  30-31,  36; 
distinction  in  ends,  171;  ex- 
perience, 79,  80;  forms,  105; 
on  change,  107;  on  philosophy 
as  contemplation,  109,  110; 
on  slavery,  191;  theory  of  the 
state,  44;  ultimate  reality,  106 

Art,  34,   103,  211,  212 

Artisan,   15;  knowledge,  110 

Associations,  205;  voluntary, 
200 

Astronomers,  65,  113 

Astronomy,  75 

Athenians,  13,  19 

Augustine,  St.,  Ill 

Authority,  48,  139,  195;  final, 
161;  seat  of,  160.  See  also 
Final  good 

Bacon,  Francis,  28,  81,  97; 
criticism   of   the   learning   of 


his  day,  29-30;  experience,  97- 
98 ;  "  knowledge  is  power," 
29;  summary  of  ideas,  29 

Being,  perfect,  111 

Being  and  non-being,  107 

Beliefs   and   facts,  12 

Bentham,  166,  182,  188 

Bergson,    71 

Berkeley,  50 

Biology',  75,  84 

Bliss,  111,  112 

Bosanquet,  134 

Bradley,  107 

Bruno,  66 

Business,  41,  43,  183 

Butler,  Bishop,  21 

Capital,  43 

Capital  and  labour,  191 

Capitalism,  41,   182 

Castes,  material,  59 

Casuistry,  166 

Causation,  63 

Causes,  59,  60 

Certainty,  21,  22 

Change,  ancient  idea  of,  57; 
existing  view,  113;  law  of  the 
universe,  61;  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle on,  107;  progress  and, 
116 

Chemistry,  75 

Child  life,  91-92,  184 

Christian  mediaeval  philosophy, 
17,  19 

Christian  theology,  111 

Church,  47;   universal,  45 

Classes,  75,  152,  155;  in  the 
ancient  conception  of  the 
world,  59 

217 


218 


INDEX 


Classic  conception  of  philoso- 
phy, 17,  22,  24,  74,  105 

Classification,  152,  169 

Common  sense,  100 

Communication  at  a  distance, 
118,  120 

Comte,  Auguste,  10 

Conceptions,  81,  144,  145;  re- 
construction in,  moral,  161; 
truth,  156 

Concrete  cases,  in  morals,  161; 
in  social  philosophy,  188 

Concreteness,  150 

Condillac,  81 

Conduct,  80;   right  course,   163 

Conflict,  108,  138,  140;  of  ends, 
166 

Conscience,  46 

Consequences,  investigating, 

163-164 

Conservatism,  18,  33,  40,  100 

Constant,  61 

Contemplation,  109,  111 

Contract  theory  of  the  state, 
45 

Control,  42,  64 

Co-operation  in  research,  37 

Cosmogonies  and  cosmologies,  9 

Cosmology,  70,  75 

Craftsmen,  12,  13 

Criteria,  77 

Crusades,  39 

Cults,  8;  consolidation,  9 

Custom,  17,  161 

Dante,  55 

Darwin,  75 

Deduction,  148 

Delusions,  139 

Democracy,  47,  186,  206;  of 
facts,  66;  significance,  209 

Demonstration,  20,  21,  31;  dis- 
covery vs.,  32 

Descartes,  50 

Desires,  110,  111;  frustration, 
104 

Details,  141 


Development,  Aristotle's  use  of 
term,  57,  58 

Diagnosis,  142 

Direction,  176 

Disagreeable,  103 

Discipline,  103,  104,  184 

Discord,  108 

Discovery,  contacts  of  16th  and 
17th  centuries,  39;  demon- 
stration vs.,  32 ;  logic  of,  31, 
33;  moral,  174 

Distance,  118-119,  120 

Doctrines,  8;  consolidation,  9 

Dogma,  145,  159 

Dreams,  119, 120, 139;  world  of,  7 

Dualism,   173 

Duties  and  rights,  207 

Earth,  ancient  conception,  55; 
relation  to  universe,  66 

Economic  ends,   171-172 

Education,  125,  183,  209 

Efficient  cause,  59,  60 

Emotion,  103,  210 

Empirical   and  rational,  81,  87 

Empiricists,  78,  82 

Ends,  conflicting,  166;  fixed,  70; 
intrinsic  and  instrumental, 
170,  172-173;  means  and,  72- 
73;  values,  175 

English  empiricism,  99 

Environment,  10;  life  and,  84 

Epistemology,  49,  70,   123,   126 

Errors,  35 

Esthetic  and  practical,  66 

Estheticism,  115-116,  117,  180; 
science    and,   reconciling,    127 

Ether,  55,  56 

Ethical  theory,  161 

Europe,  nationalistic  movement, 
201;  social  cause  of  intellec- 
tual revolution  in  16th  and 
17th  centuries,  38-39 

Evil,  problem  of,  177 

Evolution,  in  Aristotle,  58;  of 
the  state,  200-201 

Existence,  two  realms,  22 


INDEX 


219 


Experience,  32;   as  a  guide  in 
science    and    moral    fife,    78 
basis    of   old    notion    of,    79 
changed       conceptions,       77 
classic    notion    and    modern 
81;  combined  doing  and  suf- 
fering, 86;  evil  result  of  un- 
imaginative     conception      of, 
100-101;    Greek,    79;    modern 
appeal  to,  48;  new  conception, 
83 ;  Plato,  92;  principles  and, 
48 ;'      self-regulative,       94-95 ; 
true  "  stuff  "  of,  91 

Experimental  method,  13 

Experimentation,  42 

Exploration,  39,  40 


Facing  facts,  140,  141,  143 

Facts,  10,  98 

Falsity,  158 

Family  principle,  189;  in  the 
world  at  large,  61-62 

Fanaticism,  168 

Fancv.    See  Imagination 

Fear,*  40 

Feudalism,  43,  45;  of  the  uni- 
verse in  ancient  conception, 
59,  61-62 

Fighting,  15 

Final  cause,  59,  60,  68 

Final  good,  161-162,  183;  exist- 
ence of  a  single  good  ques- 
tioned, 162 

Fine  arts,  126 

Finite,  107 

Finite  and  infinite,  66 

Fire,  11,  56,  86 

Fixed  ends,  165 

Flux,  57,  108 

Formal  cause,  59,  60 

Forms  of  Aristotle,  105 

Free  will,   196 

Freedom,  law  and,  207;  re- 
li<rious,  46 

Future,  48 

Future  aim  of  philosophy,  26 


General  notions,  in  morals,  161 ; 
in  social  philosophy,  188 

Generalities,  174;  social  affairs 
and,  198 

Generalisations,  10,  151 

Geology,   75 

German  political  philosophv, 
200,  208-209 

German  rationalism,  99 

Germans,  system,  order,  docil- 
ity, 98-99  * 

Germanv,  19 

God,  10^  109 

Golden  Age,  48 

Good.     See  Final  good 

Goodness,  179 

Greeks,  9,  13,  19,  66,  67,  126; 
ethical  theory,  161;  religion, 
105;  science  and  arts,  93 

Growth,  184;  of  knowledge,  31; 
moral,  177 

Happiness,  179 

Healthy  living,  166,  167,  177 

Heavens,  ancient  conception, 
56 

Hegel,  19,  106,  189,  190;  con- 
ception of  the  state,  200,  201 ; 
logic,  134 

Helvetius,  81 

Hierarchical  order,  59 

"  Higher  "  ends,   172 

Hindoos,  126 

History,  Hegel's  conception, 
201 

History  of  philosophy,  25 

Hobbes,  88,  188 

Homo  faber,  71 

Human  aims,  42,  43 

Human  life,  "  real "  and 
"  ideal,"  a  live  issue,  128 

Humanism  and  naturalism,  174 

Humanity,  206 

Hume,  50,  83,  89 

Hypotheses,  22,  145 

Hysteria,  139 

Ideal,  changed  conceptions,  103; 


220 


INDEX 


problem  of  relation  to  the 
real,  130;  real  and,  a  human 
issue,  128 

Ideal  realm,  classic  and  modern 
conceptions  contrasted,  118 

Idealism,  129;  epistemological, 
49,  51;  theological,  50;  tragic 
kind,  129-130 

Ideality,  one  with  reality,  111; 
philosophic  conception,  106 

Ideas  of  Plato,  105 

Idols,  36 

Ills,  169;  philosophy  and,  177- 
178 

Imagination,  211;  empirical 
knowledge  and,  73,  74;  re- 
shaping power,  103,  106 

Independence,    110;    social,    185 

India,  41 

Individual,  36,  45,  51;  concept 
as  something  given,  193;  in 
social  and  moral  sense,  194; 
social  and,  199;  state  and, 
190,  191 

Individualism,  50;  political,  45, 
46;  religious,  46;  religious 
and  moral,  46 

Induction,  34 

Industrial  revolution  and  scien- 
tific revolution,  38,  41 

Industry,  movements,  47; 
science    and,  38,  41,  42 

Infinite,  66,  67 

Initiative  46,  209 

Innate  ideas,  35,  82 

Inquiry,  174;  free,  146;  impar- 
tial, 147;  methods  in  moral 
ills,  170 

Insincerity,  20 

Instability,  107 

Institutions,  196;  true  starting- 
points   of  inquiry  about,    197 

Instrumental  ends,  171 

Intellect,  6 

Intellectual  somnambulism,  140 

Intellectualism,  117 

Intelligence,  36,  51;  as  inquiry 


into     consequences,     163-164 ; 

definition,  96 
Interest,  194-195 
International  interests,  204,  205 
Intrinsic  good,  170,  206 
Introspection,  196 
Invention,  39,  42,  49,  122 
Investigation,  147 
Ipse  dixit  method,  166 
Irresponsibility,  97 

James,  William,  21;  Pragma- 
tism, 38 

Judea,  9 

Judgment,  133;  moral,  176; 
standards,  175 

Kant,  50,  83,  98, 206;  his  philoso- 
phv  and  German  character, 
98:99 

Kinship,  62 

Knowledge,  conception  as  be- 
holding, 115;  degrees,  108; 
empirical  as  organ  of  imagi- 
nation, 73,  74;  existing  prac- 
tice, 112;  modern  view  of 
right  way  to  get  it,  113;  posi- 
tive, 12;  positive  vs.  tradition, 
16;  practical  and  operative, 
121,  122;  sensations  and,  87, 
88,  89;  spectator  conception, 
112,  117 

"  Knowledge  is  power,"  29, 42, 51 

Law,  61,  64;  freedom  and,  207; 
reason  and,  98.  See  also  Final 
good 

Learning,  Bacon's  three  kinds, 
29 

Licentiousness,  163 

Life,  167,  211;  environment  and, 
84-85 

Literary  culture,  39 

Locke,  35,  50,  81,  89,  152; 
philosophic  empiricism,  82 

Logic,  a  science  and  an  art, 
135;  apparatus,  20,  21;  char- 
acter,   132,    134;    importance, 


INDEX 


221 


138;  in  morals  and  politics, 
138;  inconsistencies,  134;  new, 
36;  of  discovery,  33;  of  dis- 
covery vs.  that  of>  argumen- 
tation, 31;  theory,  chaotic 
state,   133 

Logical  svstem,  9 

Lotze,   134 

Making  a  living,  211 
Man,   perfectibility,  49;   primi- 
tive, 4,  5 ;  savage  and  civilized, 

85;  tool-maker,  71 
Marcus   Aurelius,  106 
Materialism,  50,  70,  73,  171,  182 
Mathematics,  137,  149 
Matter,   72,  211 
Means  and  ends,  72-73 
Mechanics,  67,  69;  Greeks  and, 

67 
Mechanism,  211 

Mechanisation  of  nature,  71-72 
Mediaeval   Christianitv,    17,   19, 

126 
Meliorism,  178 
Memory,    1,    6,    103;    emotional 

character,   2;    individual    and 

group,  8;  primitive,  3 
Metaphysics,  17,  124,  126 
Methods,  149;  social  philosophy, 

193;  true,  32 
Middle  Ages,  47,  64,  132 
Military  art,  15 
Mill,  J.'  S.,  132 
Mind,  pure,  111 
Miracles,  125 
Mistakes,  175 
Modern   thought,  52;  Bacon  as 

founder,    28;    early,    49,    50. 

See  also  Thought 
Mohammedans,  39 
Moral  ends,  169 
Moral  life,  165 
Moral      science.        See      under 

Science 
Morality,   pragmatic   rule,    163; 

standard  of  iudgment,  176 


Morals,  126,  169;  politics  and, 
197 

National  state,  200;  end  or  in- 
strument, 202-203;  role  of 
the  modern,  201 

Nationalistic  movement,  201 

Natural  Science.  See  under 
Science 

Naturalism  and  humanism,  174 

Nature,  contrast  of  ancient  and 
modern  conceptions,  53-54; 
inquiry  into,  32,  37,  48,  49; 
loss  of  poetry  when  consid- 
ered as  mechanism,  69;  pro- 
found change  in  man's  atti- 
tude to,  115;  value  of 
mechanisation,  71-72;  web  im- 
posed on,  35-36 

Neglect,  97 

Neo-Platonism,  111 

New  World,  39 

Non-being,  107 

Noumenal  reality,  23 

Nous,  36 

Obliviscence  of  the  disagree- 
able, 103 

Observation,  140 

Optimism,   178 

Opportunity,  211 

Organic  society,  187 

Organisms,  86 

Organisation,  206-207 

Oriental  nations,  127 

Origin  of  philosophies,  5,  18,  243 
25 

Pantheon,  Greek,  105 
Past,  212 

Perfectibility  of  mankind,  49 
Perfection,  177 
Personality,  47,  189,  209 
Persuasion,  31 
Pessimism,  178 
Phariseeism,  176 


222 


INDEX 


Phenomenal  reality,  23 

Philosophy,  emancipation,  123; 
function,  111,  122;  future  aim 
and  scope,  26;  hard  and  fast 
alternatives  of  English  and 
German  schools,  99-100;  his- 
tory, 25;  opportunities,  49; 
origin,  5,  18,  24,  25;  practical 
nature,  121;  proper  province, 
24,  124  work,  18 

Physician,  168 

Physics,  75 

Plato,  13,  14,  17,  19,  188,  205; 
dramatic  sense,  15;  experi- 
ence, 79,  92;  ideas,  ideal 
realm,  105;  on  change,  107; 
social  arts,  94;  ultimate  real- 
ity, 106 

Pleasure,  181 

Plotinus,  106 

Pluralism,  204 

Poetry,  7,  8,  103,  212 

Political  changes,  43 

Political  organisation,  44 

Politics,  125;  morals  and,  197; 
movements,  47 

Possession  of  knowledge,  31 

Potentiality,  Aristotle's  use  of 
term,  57,  58 

Practical  and  esthetic,  66 

Pragmatism,  38 

Pretensions,  21 

Primitive  man,  4 

Principles,  81,  163;  criteria  of 
experience,  48 

Probability,  21 

Production,  181 

Progress,  42,  48,  116,  211: 
Bacon  and,  32,  34;  economic 
and  moral,  contrast,  125 

Proof,  20 

Property,  182,  189 

Protestantism,  46 

Proudhon,  189 

Prussian  State,  190,  201 

Psycholog)^,  83,  135;  change  in, 
84;  malicious,  82 


Pure  reason,  78 

Questioning,  17.  See  also  In- 
quiry 

Radicalism,  18,  19,  100 

IRank,  63 
Rationalism,  97;  rigidity,  98 
Rationalists,  87,  88,  89 
Rationalisation,  97,  102 

Real,  changed  conceptions,  103; 
ideal  and,  a  human  issue,  128; 
problem  of  relation  to  the 
ideal,  130 

Reality,  23,  27;  classic  concep- 
tion, 105;  nomenal  vs.  phe- 
nomenal, 23;  ultimate,  106; 
ultimate,  one  with  ideality, 
111 

Reason,  83,  174;  as  a  faculty 
separate  from  experience,  95; 
as  re-adjusting  intelligence, 
96;  changed  conceptions,  77 

Reasoning,  32 

Reconstruction  of  philosophy, 
52;  essential,  51;  historical 
factors,  28;  in  moral  concep- 
tions, 161;  scientific  factor, 
53;  social  philosophy  and, 
187;  specific  present  problem, 
43;  value  of  a  solution  of 
the  dilemma  of  reason  and 
experience,  101 

Re-creation,  51,  180 

Reform,  179,  180;  starting- 
point,  196 

Relativity  of  sensations,  88 

Religion,  103,  211,  212;  move- 
ments, 47 

Religious    freedom,   46 

Religious    spirit,    210 

Renaissance,  29 

Research,  42;  co-operative, 
37 

Responsibility,   163 

Revolution   of  thought,   60 

Rights  and  duties,  207 


INDEX 


223 


Rome,  9 

Ruler  and  subject,  44;  in 
nature,  64 

Rules  of  conduct,  165 

Sailors,  11 

Salvation,  112 

Santayana,  George,  on  Locke, 
82 

Satisfaction,  157 

Savage,  85,  176 

Scholasticism,  30 

Science,  14,  23;  advance  in,  53; 
co-operative  pursuit,  37 ; 
estheticism  and,  reconciling, 
127;  human  value,  173;  indus- 
try and,  38,  41,  42;  natural, 
42,  48;  open  world  of,  61; 
origin,  12;  picture  of  uni- 
verse, 64-65;  relation  to  ex- 
perience, 95;  separation  of 
natural  and  moral,  173:  so- 
called,  36;  traditional,  30 

Scientific   revolution,   53 

Self-delusion,  140 

Self-interest,  194-195 

Sensations,  84;  as  points  of  re- 
adjustment, 89;  relativity,  88 

Senses,  84,  87 

Sentimentalism,  73 

Shakespeare,  94 

Slavery,  191 

Social  belief,  26 

Social  development,  43 

Social  evils,  182.    See  also  Ills 

Social  philosophy,  reconstruc- 
tion, 187;  reconstructive  im- 
pact, 193 

Social  unit,  real,  204 

Social  welfare,  180 

Sociality,   185 

Society,  200,  205;  defect  of 
usual  theories  about,  188;  in- 
dividuals and,  three  views, 
187-188;  philosophy  and,  124 

Socrates,  14,  17 

Soldiers,  139 

Sophists,  13,  14 


Space,  118-119,  120 

Spinoza,  106 

Standards,  175 

State,  Aristotle's  theory,  44; 
contract  theory,  45;  current 
conception,  200;  importance, 
204;  individual  and,  190,  191; 
modern,  44;  origin,  44;  su- 
premacy, 202,  203 

Subject  and  ruler,  44;  in  nature, 
64 

Success,  179 

Suggestions,  3,  6,  7 

Summiim  Conum.  See  Final 
good 

Supernaturalism,  47 

System,  98,  99 

Telegraph,  120 

Telephone,  120 

Terminology,  21 

Theories,  144,  145;  validitv, 
156 

Theory  and  practice,   140 

Things  as  they  are,  115 

Thinking,  habits,  74,  75.  See 
also  Thought 

Thomas,  St.    See  Aquinas. 

Thought,  117;  good  and  bad 
thinking,  136;  instrumental 
nature,  145-146;  its  origin  in 
difficulties,  138-139;  kinds, 
135;  logic  and,  134;  place, 
96;  systems,  145 

Tolerance,  46 

Tradition,  14;  positive  knowl- 
edge vs.,  16 

Transitoriousness,  106 

Travel,  39,  40 

Trouble,  138,  140 

Truth,  as  utility,  157;  defining, 
159-160;  logical  conception, 
156-157:  old  and  new,  33,  34; 
pragmatic  conception,  156, 
159;  test  of,  nature  of,  155, 
166;  why  the  modern  concep- 
tion is  offensive,  157,  158 


224 


INDEX 


Unity,  108 

Universal,  64 

Universe,  closed  conception,  54 

Utilitarianism,  defects,  181 ; 
merit,  180;  need  of  recon- 
struction, 183 

Utility,  157 


Valves,  15 
Verification,  156 
Virtues,  164 
Vision,  21 


War,   204 

War,  world,  lesson,  129;  na- 
tionalistic phase,  201;  "real" 
and  "ideal"  in,  128 

Wealth,  40,  42,  125 

Wind,  11 

Work,  181 

Workingmen,   139 

World,  closed  and  open  con- 
ceptions, 54,  60-61 ;  modern 
conception  as  material  for 
change,  114;  nomenal  and 
phenomenal,  23 


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